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A 


CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


f  BV 

REV.  ASA  MAHAN,  D.D.,  LL.D., 


ADTHOB  or 


'  TBI  SCIEHCK  or  ISTKLLECTCAL  PHILOSOPHT,' 'THE  SYSTEM  OF  MENTAL  PBILOSOPHT,* 'TBK  SaCMCK 
or  LOGIC,'  '  THE  8CIEHCB  Or  KATUBAL  TBEOLOOT,'  WtO, 


IN  TWO  VOLUMES. 
VOL.    I. 


•  Hovr  charming  Is  divine  Philosophy ; 
Not  harsh  and  crabbed,  as  dull  fools  suppoM^ 
But  musical  as  is  Apollo's  lute, 
And  a  perpetual  feast  of  nectar'rt  sweetSi 
Where  no  crude  surfeit  reigns.' 


NEW  YORK: 
PHILLIPS    &     HUNT. 

CINCINNATI: 

WALDEN     &     STOWE. 

1883. 


PKEFACE. 


The  following  fact,  which  occurred  more  than  twenty  years  since,  was  the 
prime  occasion  of  the  preparation  and  publication  of  the  following  Treatise. 
A  distinguished  German  scholar  who  was  then  the  president  of  the  leading 
Lutheran  College  in  the  United  States,  after  having  read  a  work  of  mine 
entitled  *  The  Science  of  Intellectual  Phikisophy,'  a  work  in  which  I  gave 
a  specific  statement  of  the  character  of  the  different  systems  of  Philosophy 
which  in  the  present  and  past  ages  have  been  commended  to  world-thought 
— this  scholar,  after  having  read  that  work,  remarked  to  a  friend  of  mine 
'that  President  Mahan  ought  to  write  a  History  of  Philosophy.'  The 
reason  assigned  for  that  judgment  was  this:  'He  understands  the  diverse 
systems  which  the  history  of  Philosophy  presents  to  our  regard.'  As  I 
revolved  the  subject  in  thought,  the  plan  of  the  following  Treatise  opened 
at  once,  with  perfect  distinctness,  upon  my  mind — a  plan  which,  as  I 
clearly  perceived,  remedied  fully  the  essential  defects  which  characterize 
all  Histories  of  Philosophy  which  have  hitherto  been  written.  The  defect 
referred  to  is  this — in  such  histories  there  is  no  clear  and  distinct  classifi- 
coiion  of  the  diverse  systems  presented.  In  reading,  consequently,  the 
mind  becomes  confused,  rather  than  instructed,  as  the  diverse,  and  contra- 
dictory, and  undefined  solutions  of  world-problems  become  subjects  of 
thought  and  reflection.  The  plan  suggested,  on  the  other  hand,  enables 
the  author  to  define  and  classify  befurehand  all  such  systems  which  ever 
have  appeared,  or  ever  can  appear,  and  to  do  this  with  such  perfect  dis- 
tinctness and  definiteness  that,  when  any  such  system  is  presented,  the 
reader  will  at  once  perceive  to  what  class  it  belongs,  what  are  its  essential 
characteristics,  what  are  its  constituent  elements,  upon  what  basis  it  rests, 
what  are  its  real  merits  or  defects,  and,  consequently,  what  place  it  should 
occupy  in  his  regard. 

When  the  plan  had  assumed  a  full  and  mature  form  in  my  own  mind, 
and  before  I  put  pen  to  paper  upon  the  subject,  I  presented  it  verbally  to 
a  large  number  of  the  best  thinkers  and  judges  on  such  subjects  that  I 
met  with.     From  every  one  of  these  I  received  an  earnest  exhortation  to 


Tl  PREFACE. 

make  it  iny  first  business  to  fill  out  the  plan  presented,  and  to  publish  it 
for  the  benefit  of  the  world.  After  such  a  presentation  to  Bishop  Simpson, 
for  example,  who  had  had  a  large  experience  as  a  professor  of  mental  and 
moral  science,  he  thus  expressed  himself  to  me  :  President  Mahan,  my 
earnest  advice  to  you  is  to  prepare  that  work  as  soon  as  practicable,  and 
to  publish  it,  not  only  for  the  benefit  of  science,  but  as  a  fundamental 
vindication  of  the  central  truth  of  Christianity,  the  doctrine  of  a  personal 
God.  Your  plan,  as  I  clearly  perceive,  not  only  lays  bare  the  banks  of 
sand  on  which  all  false  and  godless  systems  are  based,  but  reveals,  with 
perfect  distinctness,  the  Theistic  system  as  resting  upon  the  rock  of  truth 
itself.  This  plan  also  perfectly  remedies  the  fundamental  defects  manifest 
in  all  the  Histories  of  Philosophy  which  I  have  ever  met  with.  I  do  not 
put  the  above  in  quotations,  because  I  can  give,  not  the  words,  but  only 
the  thoughts,  the  thoughts  of  encouragement,  expressed  by  the  venerable 
Bishop. 

Thus  encouraged  and  admonished,  the  work  was  commenced.  When 
I  had  finished  the  Introduction,  knowing  very  well  that  it  was  a  complete 
treatise  in  itself — that  if  it  was  a  marked  success,  such  would  be  that  of 
the  whole  work  ;  and  that  if  it  was  a  failure,  the  whole  Treatise  would  be 
an  abortion — I  submitted  the  manuscript  containing  said  Introduction  to 
quite  a  sufficient  number  of  the  best  thinkers  and  judges  I  could  select, 
earnestly  requesting  them  to  carefully  read,  and  then  give  in  writing  their 
candid  judgment  of  the  real  merits  of  the  work.  From  every  one  of  these 
I  received  the  same  expressions  of  approbation  and  encouragement  which 
I  had  previously  received  from  a  verbal  presentation  of  the  plan  of  the 
work. 

Among  these  written  testimonials,  and  as  fair  examples  of  all  the 
others,  I  present  but  the  three  following.  The  first,  and  that  which,  on 
account  of  its  completeness,  as  well  as  for  the  known  reputation  of  the 
author,  deserves  very  special  attention,  is  from  the  Eight  Reverend  the 
Dean  of  Canterbury,  D.D.  The  second  is  from  the  late  Bishop  E.  0. 
Haven  and  two  of  his  leading  associate  professors  in  the  North- Western 
University,  of  which  the  Bishop  was  then  Chancellor.  The  third  and  last 
is  from  the  late  Rev.  Leonard  Bacon,  D  D.,  a  name  not  only  known  in 
Europe,  but  held  in  universal  honour  in  the  United  States. 

Dbankkt,  Canterbury,  23rd  February,  1880. 
My  dear  Sib, — 

I  have  read  with  great  interest  the  Introduction,  which  you  sent 
me,  to  your  'Critical  History  of  Philosophy.'  I  like  it  exceedingly. 
Usually  a  history  of  Philosophy  gives  at  best  a  fair  statement  of  what 
others  have  held,  and  after  reading  of  system  after  system,  the  mind  is 
left  in  a  state  of  utter  confusion,  not  knowing  what  to  believe,  and 


PREFACE.  vii 

wondering  how,  upon  every  conceivable  subject,  thinkers  have  held  the 
very  reverse  of  one  another.  You  propose  to  take  your  readers  through 
all  these  philosophies  with  the  lamp  of  real  science  in  your  hand.  As 
you  show,  only  four  systems  of  Philosophy  are  really  possible,  Materialism, 
Idealism,  Scepticism,  and  Eealism.  Of  these  you  demonstrate,  that  while 
the  three  former  are  based  upion  assumptions  *  begged  '  by  their  upholders, 
the  latter  rests  upon  data  and  facts  intuitive  and  connatural  The  charm 
of  the  former  consists  often  in  the  logical  exactness  with  which  the  system 
is  deduced  from  the  assumed  principles,  and  while  following  admiringly  the 
chain  of  deductions  growing  in  orderly  sequence  out  of  one  another,  we 
forget  that  the  assumption  rests  solely  upon  an  act  of  the  will  with  no 
external  validity.  Your  criteria  are  all  facts  or  deductions  which  follow 
necessarily  from  these  facta 

Your  work,  I  venture  humbly  to  think,  will  have  a  twofold  value. 
First,  it  will  show  how,  under  an  endless  apparent  variety,  there  lie  a 
limited  number  of  principles  at  the  root,  appearing  again  and  again,  in 
changing  forms,  but  really  the  same.  And  secondly,  it  will  examine  each 
system  of  thought  by  criteria  of  which  you  have  proved  the  soundness  of 
truth.  And  so  a  student,  who  has  read  your  *  History  of  Philosophy ' 
with  fair  attention,  will,  when  he  lays  it  down,  find  that  all  these  varying 
systems  have  arranged  themselves  in  his  mind  under  their  proper  heads, 
and  that  he  has  seen  hence  their  weakness  and  their  strength.  Instead 
of  burdening  his  memory,  it  will  guide  his  judgment. 

Believe  me,  my  dear  sir, 

Very  truly  yours, 

K.  Payne  Smith. 

Rev.  Asa  Mahan,  D.D. 

Nobth-Westebu  TTmvBBsiTT,  EvANSTON,  Illinois, 

25<A  A'pi-il,  1872. 

We  have  listened  to  some  passages  from  a  manuscript,  *  Critical  History 
of  Philosophy,'  by  Rev.  Dr.  Asa  Mahan,  together  with  a  general  descrip- 
tion of  his  plan  and  method  in  the  work.  The  plan  strikes  us  as 
admirable,  and  the  purpose  to  present  the  history  of  Philosophy  critically, 
rather  than  chronologically,  is  good.  Judging  from  what  we  have  heard, 
the  object  of  the  book  is,  not  to  mention  and  describe  critically  all 
prominent  writings  on  Philosophy,  but  positively  to  establish  its  funda- 
mental principles,  and  to  show  the  relations  of  all  leading  systems  to  these 
principles.  A  good  work,  well  wrought  out  on  this  plan,  must  be  of  very 
great  value.     We  think  the  book  will  meet  an  acknowledged  want. 

H  0.  Haven. 

M.  Raymond. 

J.  S.  Jewell. 


viii  PREFACE. 

Nkwhaven,  20<A  June,  1872. 

Dear  Sib, 

I  regret  that  I  have  not  had  time  for  a  thorough  study  of  your 
manuscript,  placed  in  my  hands  by  Dr.  White.  But  I  have  examined  a 
portion  of  it  with  careful  attention ;  and  though  such  inquiries  have  been 
to  me  of  late  less  fascinating  than  they  once  were,  my  own  studies  having 
led  me  in  other  directions,  I  have  found  my  interest  in  your  great  theme 
renewed  and  freshened  by  the  study  of  that  portion. 

I  trust  you  will  complete  the  work  and  publish  it.  For  my  own  part, 
I  profess  no  philosophy  but  common-sense ;  and  I  like  your  philosophy 
because  it  seems  to  be  about  the  same  thing — common-sense  analyzing  and 
defining  itself.  In  these  days,  when  popular  literature  is  so  widely  in- 
fected with  the  scepticism  of  scientific  Materialism,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
fantastic  Idealism,  on  the  other,  you  have  undertaken  the  task  of  teaching 
thinkers  how  to  think,  and  of  affirming  and  maintaining,  in  the  face  of  all 
Pyrrhonism,  the  validity  of  those  primary  intuitions  which  are  essential 
to  all  thought.  *  Fit  audience'  may  you  find,  and  not  'few.'  You  do  not 
address  yourself  directly  to  the  million,  but  if  you  can  rectify  the  thinking 
of  those  who  guide  the  million — authors,  teachers,  preachers — you  will 
do  a  great  work  for  your  own  and  the  coming  generations.  Fully  aware 
that  my  judgment  is  not  worth  much,  I  will  nevertheless  venture  to 
express  the  opinion  that  the  work  you  have  now  in  hand  is  better  than 
anything  you  have  yet  done,  and  that  your  History  of  Philosophy  will  be 
a  substantial  contribution  to  the  progress  of  Philosophy. 

Yours  truly, 

Leonard  Baoox. 

Kev.  A.  Mahan,  D.D. 


Thus  encouraged,  I  entered  with  a  will  upon  the  details  of  the  Treatise 
itself.  At  every  step,  as  I  progressed,  I  became  more  and  more  deeply 
impressed  with  the  importance  of  the  work  in  which  I  was  engaged ;  and 
when  I  had  carefully  reviewed  the  work  after  my  task  was  completed,  I 
became  fully  assured  that  what  I  had  written  did,  what  had  never  been 
done  before,  meet  fully  a  central  want  of  the  present  age.  What  is  now 
imperiously  needed  is  a  clear  and  distinct  understanding  of  the  real  nature 
and  character  of  the  imposing  systems  of  Idealism,  Materialism,  and 
Scepticism,  which  are  being  commended  to  public  regard.  While  these 
systems  are  not  thus  understood,  the  great  names  by  which  they  are  re- 
]>resented  impart  to  them  an  overshadowing  influence  with  the  public. 
When  distinctly  unmasked,  and  revealed  to  the  world  as  they  are  in 
themselves,  one  impression  will  be  permanently  left  upon  the  public 
uiiiid — namely,  that  not  a  few  of  the  greatest  thinkers  the  world  has 


^' 


PREFACE. 


known  have  expended  their  great  powers  in  developing  and  systematizing 
the  greatest  conceivable  errors  and  absurdities,  and  that  the  utterance  of 
an  ancient  wise  man  is  true,  that  the  mass  of  '  philosophers  are  a  race  mad 
with  logic,  and  feeding  the  mind  on  chimeras.'  Whether  such  utterances 
are  true  or  not,  the  intelligent  reader  of  the  following  Treatise  will  not  fail 
to  know  Idealism  in  all  its  forms,  Materialism,  and  Scepticism,  as  they  are, 
and  that  in  distinct  contrast  with  the  only  remaining  system.  Realism, 
which  embodies  and  scientifically  verifies  the  doctrine  of  Theism,  the  only 
true  hypothesis  of  Ultimate  Causation. 

To  the  following  statement  we  would  invite  special  attention.  lu 
reading  the  following  Treatise,  the  reader  will  not  fail  to  notice  that,  in 
our  expositions  of  the  same  systems  as  developed  in  different  ages, 
thoughts  before  expressed  are  often  repeated.  The  reason  for  such  repeti- 
tion was  this :  the  Author  was  desirous  that  the  reader,  instead  of  being 
necessitated  to  refer  back  to  what  had  before  been  written,  should  in 
every  case  have  truth  and  error  directly  and  distinctly  before  his  mind, 
and  thus  be  able  to  form  a  more  distinct  and  ready  judgment  of  their  re- 
spective claims.  With  the  above  statements  and  explanations,  the  '^realise 
is  commended  to  the  impartial  judgmeut  of  the  publia 


CONTENTS. 

GENERAL    INTRODUCTION. 
SECTION  L 

FAOB 

The  Design  and  Plan  of  the  Wobk  -  -  -       1 

What  we  purpose  to  Accomplish,  and  by  what  Method      -  -  -        2 

SECTION  XL 

Fhilobopht— ITS  Natubb  and  Tbuk  and  Pbopeb  Sphbbb  in  ths  Eufisb 

OF  WoKLD  Thought     -  -  -  -  -  -        3 

What  does  Philosophy  imply  ?                -                -                •                -  -        5 

Relations  of  these  two  Forms  of  Knowledge  to  each  other  -                -  -        5 

Criteria  of  True  and  False  Systems  of  Science  -  -  •  •  6 
Principles  and  Facts  of  True  Science,  as  distinguished  from  Assumptions, 

Opinions,  Conjectures,  etc.               -                 -                 -                 •  •         7 

Principles  as  distinguished  from  mere  Assumptions              -                -  -        7 

Opinions,   Beliefs,    Conjectures,    etc,  as  distinguished    from  Facts  of  Real 

Knowledge      -                -                -                -                -                •  -9 

Intuitions  and  Forms  of  Belief  which  take  rise  from  Intuitions          •  '9 

Condition  of  Real  Knowledge                 -                 -                •                 •  -10 

The  Question,  What  can  we  Know  ? — how  Answered  -  -  10 
Conditions,  Extent,  and  Limits  of  Valid  Elnowledge  as  Affirmed  in  all  Systems 

(if  Materialism  and  Idealism          -                 -                -                 •  •       11 

Remarks  on  these  Hypotheses               -                •                -                •>  -11 

SECTION  nL 

FOCB,   AND  BUT  PoUB  RkaLITTES,  VIZ.,  SPIEIT,  MaTTEB,  TiMS,  AND  SfAOI;  ABB 

RePBKSENTKO,  OB  ABK  ReFBESSNTABLE,   IN   HUHAN  THOUGHT     •  '13 

Nature,  Character,  and  Mutual  Relations  of  these  Four  Realities       •  •       14 

All  these  Realities  are  distinctly  represented  in  Human  Thought       -  •       15 

No  other  Reality  is  or  can  be  represented  in  Human  Thought  -  •       15 

These  Realities  wholly  unlike  each  other  -  -  •  -15 

These  Realities  differ  equally  relatively  to  our  Manner  of  Perceiving  and 

Apprehending  them         •  -  -  -  •  -16 

These  Realities  sustain  to  each  other  fixed  and  definable  Relations  •       17 

These'  Apprehensions  not  Self -contradictory         -  -  -  -       18 

Nccedsai-y  Deductions  from  the  Principles  and  Facts  just  evinced  as  True  •      21 


CONTENTS. 


These  Four  Realities  are  apprehended  by  Universal  Mind  as  actual!)'  Known 
Eealities,  nor  can  our  Apprehensions  of  any  one  of  them  be  changed, 
modified,  or  displaced  from  Human  Thought  -  -  . 

Our  Apprehensions  of  these  Realities  have  all  the  Fundamental  Characteristics 
of  Forms  of  Valid  Knowledge,  Characteristics  which  True  Science  must 
and  will  Acknowledge    .-.-.. 

I.  The  Validity  of  these  Apprehensions  cannot  be  Disproved,  or  rendered 

Doubtful      -  -  -^  -  _    - 

1.  Such  Forms  of  Knowledge  not  Naturally  Impossible  -  • 

2.  Facts   in  Disproof  cannot   be   found  outside  of   the  Sphere  of  these 

Apprehensions      -  -  -  -      "  - 

8.  Facts  in  Disproof  cannot  be  found  in  the  Relations  of  these  Apprehensions 

to  one  another      -  -  -  -  - 

4.  Such  Facts  cannot  be  found  in  what  is  Intrinsic  in  any  of  these  Appre- 
hensions ...... 

II.  Our  Apprehensions  of  Space,  Time,  Matter,  and  Spirit  are,  in  all  their 

essential  elements  and  characteristics,  distinct,  separate,  and  dissimilar 
from  all  Assumptions,  Beliefs,  and  Opinions,  which  may  or  may  not  be 
true  ....... 

III.  These  Apprehensions  have  all  Possible  Positive  Characteristics  of  Real 

Absolute  Knowledge  -  -  . 

Necessary  Ideas      •.-•... 
Contingent  Ideas — Matter  and  Spirit  -  •  >  >  . 


22 


26 

26 

27 

27 
28 
28 


31 

32 
82 
33 


SECTION  IV. 

Oeigin,  Gknesib,  and  Character  of  all  Actual  and  Co^'CKIVABLs  Systems 
OF  Philosophy  ... 

The  Diverse  Systems  Defined 

Materialism  -  -  -  - 

Necessary  Problems  which  this  Hypothesis  involves 

Idealism — Doctrine  Explained 

The  Theory  of  External  Perception 

Problems  common  to  Idealism  in  all  its  Forms    • 

Ideal  Dualism         .... 

Problems  specially  pertaining  to  Ideal  Dualism    • 

Idealism  Proper     .... 

Subjective  Idealism  .  .  • 

Problems  of  Subjective  Idealism  -  • 

Pantheism  Proper  .... 

Special  Assumptions  of  Pantheism  and  Pure  Idealism 

Necessary  Problems  of  Pantheism 

Pure  Idealism         .... 

General  and  Particular  Problems  of  Pure  Idealism 

Relations  to  each  other  of  the  Hypotheses  of  Materialism  and  Idealism 

Scepticism — The  Doctrine  Defined 

Doctrine  common  to  this  and  other  Systems 

The  Grand  Problem  of  this  System 

The  Condition  on  which  this  Problem  can  be  Solved 

The  Sceptical  Assiunption  Refuted 

Realism — The  System  Defined  •  • 

The  General  Problem  of  this  System    -  • 

Particular  Special  Problems  of  the  System  • 

Realism  Verified    ■  -  .  . 

Postulates  common  to  all  Systems 

Criteria  of  Forms  of  Valid  Knowledge  as  already  Stated 

Our  Knowledge  of  Space  and  Time  Verified 

Our  Apprehensious  of  Matter  and  Spirit  Verified 


37 

37 

38 

39 

42 

42 

43 

45 

45 

4l> 

46 

47 

48 

48 

51 

52 

52 

54 

57 

58 

68 

59 

59 

60 

61 

61 

62 

63 

63 

64 

65 


CONTENVS. 


SECTION  V. 
MlSOELLAKKOOS  ToFIOS  AND  SUGGSSTIONB. 

PAOK 

Materialism,  Idealism,  and  Scepticism  all  constructed  throughout  after  one  and 

the  same  Method — Begging  the  Question      -                 -                 -                 -  65 

The  proper  place  and  influence  of  the  diflferent  Mental  Faculties  in  the  Consti- 
tution of  Systems  of  Knowledge    -                 -                 -                 -                 -  69 

Secret  of  the  Power  of  Scepticism         -                 -                 -                 -                 -  73 

The  Secret  of  the  Power  of  Systematized  Thought,  and  the  only  Proper  Method 

of  Examining  such  Systems            -                 -                 -                 -                 -  75 

The  True  Philosopher  and  Pedant  distinguished  -                 -                 -                 -  77 

When  should  the  Deductions  and  Opinions  of  Philosophers  have   Weight 

with  usT-  -  -  -  -  -  -78 

Prudential  Considerations      -                -                -                -                -                -  79 

Plan  of  our  .Future  Inquiries  -               -               -               -               -               -  80 


PART    I. 

TEE  ORIENTAL  PHILOSOPUT. 

CHAPTER  L 

THE  HINDU  PHILOSOPHY. 

Sources  of  this  Philosophy     -               -               -               -  -  -      81 

SECTION  I. 

Exposition  of  the  General  Doctbine  op  the  Vedas   -  -  -      82 

Greneral  Reflections  on  the  Hindu  Doctrine           -                -  -  ••      83 

Philosophers  and  Religionists  of  India  •                -                -  -  -       8C 

SECTION  n. 

The  Mimansa  and  Vbdanta  Ststkms              -              -  -  -     87 

The  Vedanta  System              -                 -                -                -  -  -      88 

Specific  Expositions  of  the  Vedanta  System         -                -  -  -      90 

Ancient  and'  Modern  Pantheism             -                -                -  -  -       93 

The  Fixed  Method  of  Pantheism  as  seen   in  the  Light  of  the  Immutable 

Principles  of  True  Science  -  -  -  -  -  97 
Conditions  on  which  the  Race  can  enjoy  the  Benefits  of  'the  Revelation  of 

Absolute  Science '           -                -                •                -  .  -      99 

SECTION  IIL 

The  Semi-Obthodox  Systems             -              .              -  -  _    loo 

The  Sankhya  of  Kapila          -                 -                -                -  -  -100 

The  Sankhya  and  Vedanta  Systems  compared     -                 -  -  -     102 

Hindu  and  Modem  Dualism  ••-...    103 


CONTENTS. 


SECTION  IV. 

FAOR 

Thb  Yoga  Shastba  of  Patandjau  •  •  -  -  .    106 

SECTION  V, 
Thb  Vaibsohika  System  o»  Kanada  •  -    107 

SECTION  VL 
The  Hindu  Logio  •  •  •  -  -  -    108 

SECTION  VIL 

The  Heterodox  Systems, 


The  Djainas  and  Buddhists    - 

I.  The  System  of  the  Djainas 
11.  The  Buddhists 
Buddhist  Systems  of  Philosophy 
Pure  Idealism 
Subjective  Idealism 
The  Buddhist  Material  Systems 
llelatious  of  the  Buddhist  and  Hindu  Systems  to  each  other 


111 

111 
112 
115 
115 
116 
lid 
117 


SECTION  VIII. 
Genkral  Remabks  I7H>n  the  Indian  Philosophy  •  *  -    117 

SECTION  IX. 
The  Chinese  Philosophi   •  •  •  -  -  ,  -    119 

SECTION  X. 

The  Persian  System  •  -  •  •  •  •    120 

Ziroaster  as  a  Teacher  of  Morals  and  Philosophy  '  •  •  -    121 

The  Cosmology  of  the  '  Boundehesch '   -  «  •  •  •121 

SECTION  XL 
The  Egyptian  System        •  •  •  •  •     •        •    123 

SECTION  XIL 
General  Remarks  ttpon  the  OrientaIi  Systems  •  •  >    125 

1.  The  Connection  of  these  Systems  with  Religion  •  •  -  125 
Relation  of  Oriental  Religions  to  the  Primitive  Religion  of  the  Race  •  127 
Monotheism  the  Original  Faith  of  the  Race     -                 -                 -                 -  127 

2.  Relations  of  these  Systems  to  the  Doctrine  of  the  Soul  as  Distinct  from  all 

Material  Existences,  and  as  Immortal        ....     130 

3.  The  Relations  of  these  Systems  to  the  Doctrine  of  Right  and  Wrong,  of 

Moral  Obligation,  Moral  Desert,  and  Retribution     .  •  -    13t 


:ONTENTS. 


PAOB 

4.  Relations  of  these  Systems  to  the  Doctrine  of  Human  Sinfulness  -  -     181 

5.  The  Idea  of  Salvation  from  Sin  the  common  Element  of  all  these  Religious 

Systems        ....---     132 

6.  The  Idea  of  Human  Existence  and  Salvation,  as  it  Appears  in  the  Light  of 

all  these  Systems  -  -  -  -  -     133 

7.  What  has  the  Race  Reason  to  Expect  from  the  Anti-Theistic  Philosophies 

which  are  being  Commended  to  Human  Regard  T     •  ■  -     1S4 


PART  II. 

TEE  GRECIAN  PHILOSOPHT. 
INTEODUCTION. 

SECTION  L 

Thb  Rblations  of  thb  Greeks  to  the  Obientai.  Natiooti  •  •    187 

Correspondences  and    Differences    between    the    Grecian    and    the  Oriental 

Systems  -  -  •  -  •  -  -138 

SECTION  n. 

The  Religion  of  the  Gbeeks  -  -  •  •  .    189 

Grecian  Polytheism  -  •  •  ■  •  •139 

The  Monotheism  of  Greece    ••••••     140 

SECTION  m. 

Nattjbe,  Character,  and  Mutual  Relations  of  Knowledge  1  Priori  and 
A.  Posteriori.  These  Forms  of  Knowledge  DuTwauiSHSD  asd 
Defined         ...---.    144 

Relations  between  Knowledge  a  priori  and  i  posteriori      ...  146 

Necessary  Deductions  from  the  Preceding  Analysis  ...  148 

AH  Questions  Pertaining  to  Ontology  belong  exclusively  to  the  i  posteriori,  or 

Mixed  Sciences  -  -  -  -  -  -  153 

By  no  possibility  can  the  Knowledge  affirmed  be  obtained  of  aay  such  Substances 

or  Causes         >•■■•••  158 

SECTION  rv. 

Mtsteet  and  Absdbditt  Defined  and  Distinguishko  «  .  •    159 

Existence  involves  a  Mystery  .  .  .  •  .     161 

Bearing  of  these  Conclusions  upon  our  former  Deductions   -  -  -     162 

'i'he  Existence  of  a  Power  of  Knowledge  involves  a  Mystery  equally  profound  •     idi 


CONTENTS. 


SECTION  V. 


PAOK 


In  what  Sensb  and  Fobm  is  Human  Knowledge  Relative  and  Pheno- 
menal? .-..-..    164 

In  Phenomena,  Objects  are  Manifested  as  they  are,  and  not  as  they  are  not       -     165 
The  Dogma  that  all  our  World-Knowledge  is  mere  Illusory  Appearance  -     166 

The  Heal  Kelativity  of  Knowledge       •  -  -  -  -    167 

SECTION  VI. 
Phtsioixmt  and  Mbtaphtsios  -  -  -  _  _    269 

SECTION  VII. 

Forms      q»     Proobbssion     common     to     Anti  -  Thkistio     Systems     op 

Philosoput    -------    171 

SECTION  vin. 
The  Sohools  of  Philosofht  in  Gabkos  .  -  -  _    \i^ 


CHAPTER  L 
THE  PEE-SOCRATIC  EVOLUTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY.  175 


SECTION  I. 

The  Ionio  School— Thams  of  Miletus           -  -  -  .    175 

Exposition  of  the  Doctrines  of  Thales   -                 -  -  _  -175 

The  Cosmological  Doctrine  and  Teachings  of  Thales  -  -  -     176 

The  Theistic  Doctrine  and  Teachings  of  Thales    •  -  -  -     176 

Anaximander  and  Anaxiinenes               -                 -  .  -  .     179 

Anaxagoras              -                 -                 -                 -  -  .  -180 

Mr.  Lewes  corrected               -                -                 -  -  _  -183 

Obeervationa  upoa  the  Teachings  and  Doctrines  of  the  Ionic  School  -  -    184 

SECTION  XL 

The  Italic  Sohom              -               -               -  .  -  -    135 

Pythagoras              -                -                -                _  _  _  -    185 

SECTION  in. 

The  Eleatio  SohooZi  ---->_    188 

The  Eleatic  Metaphysical  School           -                -  -  -  -188 

Mr.  Lewes' Vindication  of  Zeno's  Argument       -  -  -  -     193 

The  Method  of  this  School     -                 -                 -  -  -  -194 

The  Physical  School  of  Elea  -                 -                 -  -  -  -]!■'> 

Exposition  of  the  System  of  these  Philosopben    -  -  -  -    l')> 

General  Reflections  upon  this  System    •                -  -  -  -     1 U7 


CONTENTS. 


SECTION  IV. 

PAOB 

Thk  Intebmediatk  School  _  -  _  ,  .    201 

HeraclituB  and  Empedodes   .  .  -  •  -  ..  201 

SECTION  V. 
Thb  Sophists       ..-.--_    203 

Common  Doctrine  of  the  Sophists         -  -  -  -  .  204 

The  Method  of  the  Sophists   -  •  -  -  -  -  205 

The  Sources  of  the  wide-spread  Influence  of  the  Sophists     ...  205 
General  Reflections  suggested  by  the  Preceding  Analysis  oi  the  Pre-Socratic 

Systems  of  FhilosopEy    ..--..  206 


CHAPTER  It 

THE  SOCRATIC  EVOLUTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY.  212 

IJHTRODUGTION, 

Pbtohowot  AiTO  Philosopht              -               .               -               .  .  212 

The  Object  of  Philosophy      -                •                -                -                -  -  212 

The  Immutable  Characteristics  of  all  Explicable  Facts  and  Relations  •  213 

The  Great  Problem  of  Philosophy          .                 -                -                 .  .  214 

The  Relations  of  Psychology  to  Philosophy  -  -  .  215 

Intellectual  Faculties,  Primary  and  Secondary     .                -                -  .  215 

Relations  of  these  Faculties  to  Science  -                 -                -                -  -  217 

Comparative  Validity  and  Authority  of  these  Faculties       ...  2I8 

SECTION  L 

S0CRATK8                -               -               -               -               -               -  -  219 

Common -Sense       ..-__».  222 

The  Era  of  the  Public  Teaching  of  Socrates         -               -               -  -  224 

The  Method  of  Socrates        .----.  225 

Special  Doctrines  Taught  by  Socrates   -                -                -                -  .  229 

The  Demon  of  Socrates         -  -  ....  231 

SECTION  n. 

Plato    -              -              -              •              --              «  -  232 

Plato  as  Contrasted  with  Socrates,  Aristotle,  and  Anaxagoras            -  -  232 

Plato's  Method        -                 -                 -                -                •                -  -  234 

General  Characteristics  of  Plato  as  a  Thinker      .                .                -  _  235 

Doctrines  which,  as  all  Authorities  admit,  Plato  did  hold  and  teach  •  •  236 

The  Psychology  of  Plato        -                 -                -                -                -  -239 

Reason  and  Judgment            •                -                -                -                -  -241 

Sensation,  or  Sense-Perception               _                _                -                .  .  242 

General  Remarks  upon  this  Psychology                -               _               .  .  24J 


CONIENTS. 


Plato's  Doctrine  of  Ideas        •  -  -  -  -  -249 

In  what  Language  and  Form  Plato  has  stated  his  own  Doctrine         •                •  2d9 

Plato's  Real  Doctrine  of  Ideas                -                 -                 -                 -                 -  251 
Consequences  which  follow  from  each  Exposition  which  has  been  given  of  Plato's 

Doctrine  of  Ideas  -  •  -  -  -  -263 

Consequences  resulting  from  the  Exposition  which  affirms  Plato's  Ideas  to  be 

'the  Eternal  Thoughts  of  the  Divine  Intellect'              ...  253 
Consequences  resulting  from  the  Doctrine  that  Plato's  Ideas  are  Real  Separate 

Existences        .......  255 

Creneral  Remarks  upon  Plato  as  a  World-Thinker                 -                 •                 .  255 

Plato,  when  in  the  Sphere  of  Socratic  Thought,  and  when  Philosophizing           -  256 
Plato,  as  furnishing  another  example  of  the  validity  of  h  priori  insight  and  of 

the  a  priori  method  of  Philosophizing                -                 -                 -                 -  257 

The  Faculty,  or  Faculties,  actually  employed  by  Plato  and  other  Philosophers 

who  adopt  the  d  priori  method  when  Philosophising                     -                .  259 

Plato  as  a  Logician                 -                 -                 -                -                -                 .  260 

The  Doctrine  of  Innate  Ideas                 •                 -                 -                 -                 -  261 

1'he  Idea  of  Reason  as  a  Faculty  possessed  only  by  Philosophers        -                -  263 
Three  great  Central  Truths,  for  the  first  scientific  Enunciation  of  which  the 

World  is  indebted  to  Plato  •  -  •  >  -264 


SECTION  in, 

Abistotib             --.-_..  265 

Aristotle's  Classification  of  the  Sciences                -                »               >                «  266 

Questions  at  Issue  between  Aristotle  and  Plato    •                 .                -                 -  266 

The  Doctrine  of  Individual  Existence  as  Opposed  to  that  of  Ideas      -                 .  267 

The  Validity  of  Sensation,  or  Sense-Perception    -                -                -                -  268 

The  Summum  Bonum            -                -                -                •                -                -  269 
Doctrine  of  Reminiscence       -                -                -                -                -                -271 

The  Universe  as  an  External  Existence,  and  as  Organized  in  Time    -                -  271 

Aristotle's  Logic     ---.-..  271 

Fundamental  Error  of  Mill  in  his  Logic                ....  275 

Aristotle's  Formula  pertaining  to  the  Origin,  Source,  and  Consequent  Elements, 

of  all  our  Knowledge       --....  277 

Aristotle's  Ethics    -                -                -                -                -                -                .  279 

*  The  First  Philosophy,'  or  Metaphysics  of  Aristotle             -                _                .  280 

Aristotle's  Proof  of  the  Divine  Existence  -  -  •  -  281 
Evidence  of  the   Being,  Perfections,  and  Providence  of  a  Personal  God,  as 

deducible  from  the  Platonic,  Aristotelian,  and  the  only  other  conceivable 

standpoint        ---..-.  282 

Argument  in  the  most  general  Form     .....  283 

The  Argument  as  Deducible  from  the  Platonic  Standpoint  -                .                .  285 

Argument  from  the  Aristotelian  Standpoint  ....  285 
The  Argument  as  Deducible  from  the  only  remaining  Standpoint,  no  other 

Hypothesis  being  Conceivable        .                .                -               .               .  286 


SECTION  IV. 

Thb  Epicukeanb  .---.-.  288 

Perceived  and  Implied  Forms  of  Knowledge        -  -  «  _  289 

Teat  of  Valid  Knowledge       -  -  -  -  _  .  290 

Tne  General  Psychology  of  Epicurus    •  -  -  -  -  291 

Ejicmean  Doctiine  of  Creation  .....  292 


CONTENTS. 


SECTION  V. 

rAOE 

The  Stoics           •              •              ••              •  -  -  -  295 

Criteria  of  Truth  according  to  the  Stoles               -  -  -  -  295 

The  Physics  of  the  Stoics        -                 -                -  -  •  -  296 

Some  of  the  Special  Doctrines  of  the  StoJCB          -  -  -  -  297 

The  Ethics  of  the  Stoics         -                -                -  -  -  -  298 


CHAPTER  in 
THE  DECLINE  OF  THE  GRECIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

INTRODUCTION, 

SECTION  L 

Causes  of  this  Decmnb        ...--.  goo 

Incidental  Causes  of  the  Decline  of  the  Qrecian  Philosophy                *  •  802 

SECTION  n. 

The  Scbpticai.  Philosophy                .              -              -              ,  _  804 

The  Issue  as  Stated  by  Mr.  Lewes        -                .                -                -  -  305 

What  Criterion  is  there  of  the  Truth  of  our  Knowledge?    -                -  -  805 

Erroneous  Statements  and  Expositions  of  Mr.  Lewes            ...  805 

Criteria  of  Valid  Knowledge                   •                 ■•                 •                -  -  808 

Necessary  Deductions  from  a  Rigid  Application  of  these  Criteria        -  •  810 

The  Sceptical  Doctrine  Self -contradictory              -                 -                 -  -  313 

The  Sceptical  Distinction  between  Phenomena  and  Noumena              -  -  81o 

Observations  upon  the  Sceptical  Doctrine  on  these  Subjects                 -  -  311 

Positive  Sides  of  the  Sceptical  Philosophy             -                 -                 -  -  817 

Necessary  Deductions  from  Fundamental  Principles  of  this  System    -  -  817 

DECLINE  OF  THE  GRECIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

SECTION  L 

The  Ptbhhonisib                 -              -               .              _              -  -  821 

The  Peculiar  Form  of  the  Pj^rrhonfc  Scepticism  -                *•                •  -  324 

The  Consummation  sought  by  the  Pyrrhonists  through  their  Philosophy  -  825 

SECTION  n. 

The  Old,  Middle,  aktd  New  Acadejct           -              ..              •  .  826 

The  Probable  Substituted  for  the  Absolute          -               .                -  -  327 


CONTENTS. 


SECTION  III, 

VAOB 
CONTOJOATION  OF  THB  AbiSTOTKLIAN  SCHOOLS    -  •  -  -     380 

SECTION  IV. 

Nko-Platonism     .-.-•-.    331 

General  Reflections  on  the  Grecian  Evolution  in  Philosopliy  -  -  335 

Verification  of  our  Statement  in  Regard  to  the  Number  and  Character  of  all 

Possible  and  Actual  Systems  of  Philosophy   -  -  .  .  335 

The  Systems  present  or  wanting  in  the  Grecian,  and  common  or  peculiar  to 

Oriental  and  Modem  Schools  .....  33Q 

In  what  Sense  and  Form  was  Grecian  Philosophy  Introductory  to  Chrlstiaoity  ?  339 


PART    III. 

BOOK  L 
TEE  CHRISTIAN  EVOLUTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY. 

SECTION  L 

DooTBiNK,  OB  Hypothesis,  of  ULTiMAra  Causation       -  _  .    841 

The  Doctrine  of  Providence  -  .  -  -  «  .     343 

Relations  of  the  above  Doctrines  to  Science         ...  343 

SECTION  TL 
Ontoloot  of  the  Biblb      --.--.    346 
Relations  of  Scien«e  to  the  Doctrines  of  S^ptural  Ontologj  -  •    847 

SECTION  III. 
The  Mobautt  of  the  Scbiptubes     -  -  .  .  .    350 

SECTION  IV. 

Special  and  Peouliab  Doctbines  op  Chbistianitt        -  -  -    852 

The  Tri-Unity  of  the  Godhead  •            -                -                -                -  -    362 

Revealed  Relations  of  these  Tri-Personalities  to  one  Another              -  .     353 

Considerations  which  Commend  this  Doctrine  to  our  Reason  and  Judgment  •     355 

The  Doctrine  of  Incarnation  and  Atonement        -                 -                 -  -356 

Relations  of  the  Doctrine  of  Incarnation  to  Reason  and  Science         -  •    857 

Atonement. 

Relation  of  this  Doctrine  to  Reason  and  Science  -  -               -  .  858 

Relations  of  God  to  Believers  as  a  Hearer  of  Prayer  .                -  .  359 

Relations  of  this  Doctrine  to  the  Teachings  of  Science  -  >  359 


CONTENTS. 


BOOK  n 

PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  EARLY  CHRISTIAN  ERA. 


SECTION  I. 
Relations  betwbkr  Theism  Puopkb  and  Chhistian  Thikic         •  -    864 

Christian  Theism  renders  infinitely  more  distinct  and  impressive  the  Real  Verities 

apprehended  through  Natural  Theism  ....     354 

Christian  Theism  extends  our  Vision  of  Truth  beyond  the  possible  reach  of 

Natural  Theism  -  -  -  -  -  -     365 

Christian  Theism  confirms  and  reaffirms  the  Validity  of  the  Doctrine  of  God  as 

taught  by  Natural  Theology  -  -  -  -  -    866 

SECTION  XL 

The  Relations  op  Chbistian  Theism  to  the  Science  of  Cosnoboor         .    368 

The  Question  of  the  Reality  of  these  Facta,  to  be  determined,  first  of  all,  wholly 

irrespective  of  their  bearing  upon  the  Claims  of  the  Christian  Religion       -     369 

SECTION  III. 

Relations  op  Supernatural  Events,  and  the  Actions  op  a  Supernatubai. 

Power  in  Nature,  to  the  so-called  Laws  op  Nature         •  •    869 

SECTION  IV. 

Supernatural  or  Miraculous  Events  defined— their  Possibilitt  and 
Probability — their  Beabinq  upon  the  Claims  op  Christian  Religion, 
mo.  -  -  .  -  -  -  -    370 

Such  Events  Defined  ......     370 

Conditions  of  the  Possibility  or  Probability  of  the  Occurrence  of  Supernattiral 

Events  -  -  -  -  -  -  -     371 

The   Knowledge   which  all   who  affirm  the    Impossibility,    Improbability,    or 

Non-actuality  of  Supernatural  Events  do,  in  reality,  assume  the  possestuon 

of     -  -  -  -  -  -  •  -     371 

Conditions  on  which  vn  are  A4}6oluteIy  Bound  to  admit  the  Actual  Occurrence 

of  Supernatural  Events  --.-..  872 
Conditions  on  which  we  may  Properly  withhold  Assent  to  the  Actuality  of 

Supernatural  Events  affirmed  to  have  occurred  ...     373 

Relations  of  these  Events  to  the  Christian  Religion  -  -  -     374 

Relations  of  these  Events  to  the  Christian  Scripture!  -  >  .    875 

SECTION  V. 
Revelation  and  Inspiration  -  -  -  -  -    877 

Terms  DeBned       «  •  -  -  -  -  -     377 


CONTENTS. 


SECTION  VL 

PAGS 

Nkedpot,  Explanations      •  -  -  -  •  -381 

Special  Explanations  ...•••    882 

SECTION  vn. 

Objections  Anbwxbbd         ......    885 

SECTION  VIIL 

The  Philosopht  of  the  Earlt  Chbistian  Chdboh         ...    392 

An  Example  of  the  Philosophic  Teachings  of  the  Leading  Doctors  of  the 

Primitive  Church  -  -  -  -  -  -394 

SECTION  IX. 

Anti-Christian  Speoitlationb  -----    897 

Oriental  Doctrines  -  -  -  .  *  -  -397 

The  Grseco-Oriental  Philosophy  -  -  -  -  -    899 

SECTION  X. 
Chbistian  Dootbinb  as  Coa&UPTSD  bx  '  Science  fauelt  bo-oaixxd  '  -    400 


CHAPTER  IIL 

THE  MEDIAEVAL  EVOLUTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY. 

The  Rise  of  Scholasticism      -.•••.  401 

Scholasticism  in  its  Primal  Form          -                -                -                .                .  402 

This  Doctrine  Verified           -                                  -                -                .                -  40S 

Scholasticism  in  its  Final  Form             -                 •                •                •                 .  405 

The  Nominalism  and  Realism  of  the  Middle  Ages               ...  4G6 

The  Mysticism  of  the  Middle  Ages       .....  409 

The  Teachings  of  Thomas  Aquinas       -                 .                                  •                -  416 

Decline  and  Fall  of  Scholasticism          -                 •                 -                 .                 -  418 

The  Dogma  that  Doubt  is  a  Pre-requisite  Condition  of  Knowledge    -                -  419 

The  Real  Place  of  '  Prudential  Doubt '  in  Science                •                .                -  423 

Heterodox  Teachings  and  Systems  of  the  Middle  Ages        -                -                 •  424 

Scientific  Problems  discussed  in  the  Middle  Ages                 ...  427 
Puerility  of  the  Questions  agitated  by  the  Schoolmen  compared  with  those 

common  in  other  Eras    -                -                -                -                •                -  428 

The  Main  Problems  agitated  by  the  Schoolmen  not  Puerile                •                -  429 


A 

CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

GENERAL    INTRODUCTION. 

SECTION  I. 

THE  DESIGN  AND  PLAN  OF  THE  WORK. 

I  PROPOSE,  from  a  standpoint  entirely  new,  in  conformity  with  a  plan, 
and  for  an  end  hitherto  unattempted,  to  write  a  History  of  Philosophy. 
In  the  productions  of  this  character  which  occupy  places  in  the  libraries 
of  world-thinkers,  we  have,  for  the  most  part,  a  mere  chronology  of  men 
and  their  systems,  systems  more  or  less  distinctly  exhibited.  We  are 
not,  first  of  all,  as  we  should  be,  put  in  full  possession  of  the  nature  and 
character  of  Philosophy  itself^  of  its  appropriate  and  exclusive  sphere  in 
the  empire  of  world-thought,  and  of  the  great  problems  of  being  and  its 
laws,  and  of  causes  proximate  and  ultimate,  which  it  is  its  province  to 
solve,  and  which  it  must  solve  before  its  mission  is  ended.  Nor  are  we 
informed  of  the  principles  and  facts  which  must  be  laid  down  and  ad- 
duced as  the  basis  of  all  our  deductions,  and  that  as  the  immutable  con- 
dition of  a  true  solution  of  the  problems  under  consideration.  Last  of 
all,  no  consciously  valid  tests  or  criteria  are  given  by  which  we  may  dis- 
tinguish the  true  from  the  false  methods  of  philosophizing,  valid  from 
invalid  principles  in  science,  or  real  from  assumed  facts  which  may  be 
adduced,  as  the  basis  of  scientific  deduction. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  are  informed,  when  any  particular  system  is 
presented,  that  such  an  individual,  in  such  an  age,  thought  out  that 
system.  We  are  not  rendered  conscious  of  the  real  relations  of  the 
system  to  the  true  and  proper  system  of  Philosophy,  what  was  the  actual 
world-problem  which  the  author  attempted  to  solve,  what  was  his  actual 
method  of  philosophizing,  what  were  the  principles  he  laid  down,  and 
what  were  the  facts  which  he  adduced  as  the  basis  of  his  deductions, 

1 


A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


and  wherein  and  why  he  succeeded  or  failed  in  accomplishing  the  end 
proposed. 

Hence  it  is  that,  in  the  study  of  such  productions,  the  reader  finds,  at 
length,  a  confused  panorama  of  multitudinous  contradictory  systems 
passing  hefore  his  mind,  systems  none  of  which  he  very  clearly  appre- 
hends, until  at  last  he  comes  to  feel  that  'chaos  has  come  again.'  He 
accordingly  lays  down  the  volume  in  which  these  systems  are  presented, 
with  the  consciousness  that  he  has  been  rather  confused  than  instructed 
by  what  he  has  read.  In  short,  histories  of  philosophy  have  not,  for  the 
most  part,  to  say  the  least,  been  what  such  productions  should  be,  to 
wit,  not  mere  chronologies  of  systems  and  men  who  have  appeared  and 
disappeared  in  the  sphere  of  world-thought,  but  in  the  true  and  proper 
sense  of  the  words,  critiques  of  systems  and  men  of  the  former  ages 
especially,  critiques  which  shall  not  only  disclose  to  the  thoughtful  in- 
quirer the  mazes  of  *  science  falsely  so-called,'  the  deceptions  of  sophistry, 
the  false  assumptions  and  deductions  of  unbelief,  and  the  hiding-places 
of  error  in  all  its  assumed  scientific  forms,  but  shall  open  upon  his 
vision  the  realm  of  truth  itself  and  *  the  highway '  of  true  science  to 
that  realm. 

What  we  purpose  to  Accomplish,  and  by  what  Method. 
What  we  purpose  to  accomplish  in  the  following  treatise,  together  with 
the  method  by  which  we  shall  attempt  to  realize  that  purpose,  has  been 
indicated,  though  not  fully  developed,  in  what  we  have  already  stated. 
It  ie  by  no  means  certain  that  he  who  is  able  to  point  out  the  errors  of 
others  will  succeed  in  remedying  the  evils  of  which  he  complains.  Nor 
does  the  ability  to  show  where  and  why  others  have  deviated  from  the 
right  path  imply  the  possession  of  that  higher  wisdom  by  which  the 
track  of  truth  is  revealed  to  universal  mind.  Our  purpose  is  to  attempt, 
at  least,  the  accomplishment  of  both  these  results.  We  shall  attempt, 
not  only  to  expose  the  errors  of  '  science,  falsely  so-called,'  but  at  the 
same  time  to  render  plain  the  track  on  which  real  science  conducts  to 
the  domain  of  truth  itself.  Truth,  when  fully  apprehended,  not  only 
demonstrates  to  the  mind  its  own  valiility  as  truth,  but  at  the  same  time 
makes  equally  manifest  error  as  it  is,  error  as  constituted  wholly  of  *  vain 
imaginings,'  wild  assumptions,  and  false  deductions,  leaked  error  is 
powerless  to  deceive,  and  borrows  all  its  efiectiveness  from  the  fragments 
of  truth  with  which  it  is  associated.  Error  always  starts  upon  the  track 
of  truth,  and  at  particular  points  takes  its  departure  from  that  path. 
Philosophy  will  never  have  completed  its  heaven-appointed  mission  until 
it  shall  have  fully  disclosed,  not  only  the  line  on  which  truth  leads,  but 
shall  have  shown,  with  equal  distinctness,  where  and  why  error,  in  all  its 
forms,  takes  its  departure  from  that  line. 


THE  DESIGN  AND  PLAN  OF  THE  WORK. 


"We  shall,  therefore,  in  this  our  introduction,  stop  for  a  while  to  dis- 
close and  determine  the  real  nature  and  exclusive  sphere  of  Philosophy 
itself,  the  great  problems  which  it  is  its  exclusive  province  to  solve,  the 
principles  and  facts  which  lie  at  the  basis  of  valid  deductions  in  this 
science,  the  criteria  by  which  we  may  distinguish  valid  from  invalid 
principles,  and  real  from  assumed  or  improperly  adduced  facts — the  true 
and  only  true  method  of  conducting  our  inquiries  in  this  science — and  this 
as  distinguished  from  those  which  obtain  in  system  s  of  error,  the  possible 
hypotheses  of  ontology  and  ultimate  causation,  and  the  tests  by  which  we 
may  distinguish  among  these  the  true  from  the  false.  We  shall  then  be 
fully  prepared,  not  only  for  a  specification,  but  critical  examination  of 
the  various  systems  which,  in  the  present  and  past  eras  of  the  world's 
history,  have  been  developed  and  commended  to  the  regard  of  mankind. 


8ECTI0IT  It 

PHILOSOPHY— ITS  NATURE  AND  TRUE  AND  PROPER  SPHERE  IN 
THE  EMPIRE  OF  WORLD -THOUGHT. 

SoiBNOB  has  been  rightfully  defined  as  knowledge  systematized.  According 
to  Webster,  it  is  'certain  knowledge'  or  'leading  truths  relating  to  any 
subject  arranged  in  systematic  order.'  Pure  science,  such  as  the  mathe- 
matics, is  based  exclusively  upon  self-evident  principles  and  facts.  The 
mixed  sciences,  such  as  physics  and  metaphysics,  are  built  upon  princi- 
ples absolutely  known  as  having  universal  and  necessary  validity,  and 
ittcLa  of  perception  external  or  internal,  facts  known  with  equal  certainty 
to  be  real.  Knowledge  pertaining  to  self-evident  principles  and  facts  is 
denominated  knowledge  (I  piiori.  Knowledge  pertaining  to  facts  of  per- 
ception is  called  knowledge  b,  posteriori.  This  distinction  should  be 
kept  distinctly  in  mind,  inasmuch  as  these  two  forms  of  knowledge 
will  hereafter  be  frequently  referred  to  under  the  above  designa- 
tions. Knowledge  of  the  former  kind  is  denominated  necessary,  and 
that  of  the  latter  contingent  knowledge.  Objects  of  the  former  class 
are  apprehended  as  real,  with  the  absolute  impossibility  of  conceiving 
them  as  not  existing,  or  as  being  in  any  respects  different  from,  or 
opposite  to,  what  we  apprehended  them  to  be.  Objects  of  the  latter 
class  are  conceived  to  be  real,  with  the  possibility  of  conceimrig  of  their 
non-reality,  or  of  their  being  different  from  what  we  apprehended  them 
to  be.  While  I  know  space,  for  example,  to  be  a  reality  in  itself,  I  find 
it  to  be  an  absolute  impossibility  for  me  even  to  conceive  of  its  non- 
existence, or  as  being,  in  any  respect,  different  from  what  I  apprehend 
it  to  be.  The  idea  of  space,  therefore,  is  denominated  a  necessary  idea.  I 
know  myself  and  body,  on  the  other  hand,  as  realities,  and  that  with 

1—2 


A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


the  same  a^jsoluteness  that  I  know  space  to  be  a  reality.  Self  and  body, 
however,  are  conceived  of  as  realities,  with  the  possibility  of  conceiving 
that  they  do  not  exist,  or  that  they  might  be,  in  themselves,  other  than 
they  are.  Our  conceptions  of  self  and  body,  therefore,  are  denominated 
contingent  ideas.  As  far  as  absoluteness  of  validity  is  concerned,  real 
knowledge  in  one  form  is  just  as  valid  for  the  reality  and  character  of  its 
object  as  in  the  other.  Knowledge,  in  its  necessary  and  contingent 
forms,  differs  merely  and  exclusively  in  regard  to  the  nature  of  its 
objects  and  our  modes  of  conceiving  of  the  same,  but  not  at  all  as  far  as 
validity  is  concerned.  1  know  myself,  for  example,  as  a  real  self-conscious 
personality,  with  the  same  absoluteness  that  I  know  space  as  a  reality. 
The  difference  pertains  exclusively  to  my  modes  of  conceiving  of  these 
realities.  The  same  holds  equally  of  real  knowledge  in  all  its  forms,  as 
far  as  absoluteness  of  validity  is  concerned. 

Science,  in  constructing  systems  of  truth,  has  to  do  with  nothing  but 
real  knowledge ;  that  is,  with  principles  known  to  possess  absolute  and 
necessary  validity,  and  with  facts  known,  with  equal  certainty,  to  be 
real.  Should  any  principle  or  fact  whose  validity  or  certainty  is  not 
thus  known  be  taken  up  as  a  part  of  such  system,  the  whole  process 
would  thereby  be  vitiated.  In  the  sphere  of  human  thought  we  meet, 
not  only  with  forms  of  real  knowledge,  but  with  those  of  assumptions, 
beliefs,  opinions,  and  conjectures.  Systems  based  upon,  or  constructed 
out  of  the  forms  last  noticed,  are  logical  fictions,  probabilities,  or  mere 
fancies,  and  not  creations  of  science.  To  impose  upon  the  public  deduc- 
tions based  upon  mere  assumptions,  conjectures,  beliefs,  or  opinions,  as 
truths  of  science,  is  sophistry.  Eeal  science  never  attempts  to  systematize 
or  elucidate  the  unknowable,  or  the  unknown.  Realities  discovered  and 
brought  within  the  sphere  of  actual  knowledge,  these  are  the  exclusive 
objects  of  its  authoritative  teachings.  Realities  admitted  to  be  located 
within  the  domain  of  the  unknowable,  or  unknown,  are  thereby,  in  fact 
and  form,  wholly  absent  from  the  sphere  of  true  science.  Upon  assump- 
tions, nothing  but  logical  fictions  can  be  constructed.  From  mere  beliefs, 
opinions,  or  conjectures,  nothing  but  probabilities,  possibilities,  or  guesses 
can  be  deduced. 

Philosophy  differs  from  science  only  as  being  less  general  and  more 
specific  and  circumscribed  in  its  sphere  of  inquiry  and  deduction. 
Science  systematizes  knowledge  in  all  its  forms.  Philosophy,  distin- 
guished from  science  as  a  part  from  the  whole,  attempts  'an  explanation 
of  the  reason  of  things,'  or  the  causes  of  facts  and  events — ultimate 
causes  especially.  The  grand  problem  of  Philosophy  pertains  to  the 
ultimate  reason,  the  finally  all-determining  cause  which  reveals  the  reason 
why  the  facts  of  universal  nature  are  as  they  are,  and  not  otherwise. 
The  problems  of  ontology^  the  inquiry  y  hat  realities  do  exist,  what  are 


PHILOSOPHY  IN  THE  EMPIRE  OF  WORLD-THOUGHT.  5 

their  nature  and  essence,  qualities  and  attributes,  what  are  the  laws 
which  govern  them,  and  what  is  the  ultimate  reason  or  cause  of  the  facts 
tinder  consideration,  these  are  problems  with  which  Philosophy,  in  its 
true  and  proper  sphere,  concerns  itsel£  In  studying  the  history  of 
Philosophy,  we  shall  find  that  these  are  the  main  problems  professedly 
solved  in  all  the  systems  which  we  shall  have  occasion  to  investigate. 
Germany  in  former  years  claimed  for  itself  the  honour  of  being  the  home 
of  Philosophy.  Thinkers  in  other  nations  were  occupied  mainly  in  the 
sphere  of  psychology  and  kindred  sciences,  while  German  thought  was 
devoted  to  the  solution  of  the  great  problems  pertaining  to  the  conditions 
of  valid  knowledge,  of  ontology,  of  being,  its  nature  and  laws,  and 
especially  of  ultimate  causation.  This  claim  was  just  as  far  as  the  true 
and  proper  idea  of  Philosophy  itself,  its  real  sphere  in  the  empire  of 
thought,  and  its  great  problems  are  concerned.  Germany,  as  we  shall 
see  hereafter,  erred  fundamentally,  tis  far  as  method  is  concerned,  and, 
consequently,  as  utterly  failed  in  the  solution  of  the  problems  of  world- 
thought. 

What  does  Philosophy  imply  t 

Philosophy  is  not  a  'primary,  but  an  ultimate  form  of  thought.  Science, 
as  we  have  seen,  is  knowledge  reduced  to  system.  Philosophy  is  science 
in  its  ultimate  form.  Science  as  Philosophy,  and  in  all  other  forms, 
implies  the  pre-existence  of  real  knowledge.  Knowledge  must  exist 
before  it  can  be  systematized  or  explained  and  elucidated.  Neither 
science  nor  Philosophy  can  create  knowledge.  They  can,  we  repeat,  but 
systematize  and  elucidate  the  previously  known.  Real  knowledge  exists 
in  the  Intelligence  in  two  forms,  tiie  systematized  and  elucidated,  as  in 
science  tuid  Philosophy,  and  in  those  primordial  forms  which  precede 
sciencei 

Eelations  of  these  two  Forms  of  Knowledge  to  each  other. 

A  very  important  inquiry  here  presents  itself — to  wit,  what  are  the 
relations  of  these  two  forms  of  knowledge,  the  primordial  and  the  syste- 
matized and  elucidated,  to  each  other  ?  The  former,  we  remark  in 
general,  must  contain,  in  an  unreflective  and  unsystematized  form,  all  that 
is  found  in  the  reflective  and  systematized  form.  All  systems  of  science 
and  Philosophy  are  constituted  wholly  of  principles  and  facts,  the  former 
organizing  and  elucidating  the  latter.  These  principles  and  facts  must 
have  been  previously  known,  that  is,  in  their  primordial  forms,  or  they 
could  not  have  been  employed  in  the  construction  of  systems  of  know- 
ledga  When  we  recur  to  the  action  of  the  Intelligence,  and  contemplate 
its  states  prior  to  all  proper  scientific  movements,  we  shall  discover  two 
distinct  forms  of  activity,  \,h.Q  jprimal  proper,  or  the  purely  intuitional,  and 


A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


what  is  denominated  the  ^rac/icaZ,  a  state  intermediate  between  int\iition 
and  science.  By  intuition  all  the  elements  which  constitute  sysfccnis  of 
knowledge  are  given.  In  this  primal  action  of  the  Intelligence,  we  have 
real  knowledge  with  no  intermixture  of  error.  The  reason  is  obvious. 
We  have  here  the  pure  and  exclusive  action  of  the  Intelligence  unin- 
fluenced by  that  of  any  of  the  other  faculties.  If  the  Intelligence 
should  err  here,  it  would  be  because  it  is  its  nature,  or  the  necessary  law 
of  its  activity,  to  err,  and  knowledge  proper  in  any  form  would  be  im- 
possible. 

In  the  intermediate  procedure  of  the  Intelligence,  the  procedure  de- 
nominated practical,  we  have,  in  their  concrete  and  particular  forms,  all 
the  principles  and  fads  which  constitute  systems  of  knowledge.  The 
child  and  the  peasant,  for  example,  when  they  perceive  that  two  given 
objects  are  each  equal  to  one  and  the  same  third  object,  know,  with  the 
same  absoluteness  that  the  philosopher  does,  that  the  two  objects  first 
designated  are  equal  to  one  another.  While  all  in  common  draw  the  same 
conclusions  in  view  of  the  same  facts,  and  all  are  guided  in  doing  so  by 
the  same  principles — to  wit,  things  equal  to  the  same  things  are  equal  to 
one  another,  the  true  philosopher  only  understands  clearly  the  reason 
why  he  makes  such  deductions  in  view  of  the  facts  referred  to.  The 
reason  is  that  he  only  knows  this  principle  in  its  abstract  and  universal 
form,  and  in  its  light  reflectively  contemplates  these  facta  Knowledge, 
in  its  original,  concrete,  and  particular  forms,  cannot  be  systematized. 
It  is  only  when  principles  are  evolved  and  presented  in  their  necessary 
and  universal  forms,  and  facts  are  set  in  the  clear  light  of  such  principles, 
that  we  have  science  or  knowledge  systematized,  that  is,  truth  in  it8 
scientific  forms. 

While  in  pure  intuition  we  meet  with  nothing  but  the  elements  of 
real  knowledge,  in  the  practical  forms  of  thouglit  we  find  truth  inter- 
mingled with  error.  The  reason  is  that  here,  what  does  not  occur  in  the 
primal  intuitional  state,  we  have  the  action  of  the  Intelligence  in  con- 
nection with  that  of  other  faculties.  As  a  consequence,  we  have  forms 
of  real  knowledge  intermingled  with  assumptions,  opinions,  beliefs,  con- 
jectures, and  guesses,  judgments,  some  of  which  are  and  some  of  which 
are  not  true,  while  others  may  or  may  not  be  truei 

Criteria  of  Truth  and  False  Systems  of  Scierux. 

When  systems  are  constructed  exclusively  from  principles  and  facts 
which  are  the  objects  of  intuitional  knowledge,  and  from  deductions 
necessarily  implied  by  such  principles  and  facts,  we  then,  and  only  then, 
have  true  science.  When,  on  the  other  hand,  mere  assumptions, 
opinions,  beliefs,  conjectures,  or  guesses,  with  deductions  from  the  same, 
pass  over  and  lie  at  the  foundation,  or  enter  as  constituent  elements  into 


PHILOSOPHY  IN  THE  EMPIRE  OP  WORLD-THOUGHT.  7 

the  structure  of  systems  of  affirmed  knowledge,  we  then  have  'scieuce, 
falsely  so-called.'  We  have  here  undeniably  universal  and  infallible  tests  or 
criteria,  by  which,  of  affirmed  systems  of  knowledge  or  science,  we  are  to 
distinguish  the  valid  from  the  invalid,  the  true  from  the  false.  Systems 
of  the  former  classes  are  to  be  esteemed  as  rightfully  having  place  in  the 
sphere  of  true  science.  Those  of  the  latter  class  are  to  be  regarded  as 
having  place  nowhere  but  within  the  circle  of  logical  fiction.  Deductions 
of  the  former  class  are  to  be  regarded  as  truths  of  science ;  those  of  the 
latter,  as  the  lawless  sophisms  or  wild  guesses  of  Mse  science. 

Principles  and  Facts  op  True  Science,  as  distinguished  from 
Assumptions,  Opinions,  Conjectures,  etc. 

A  question  of  fundamental  importance  here  arises — to  wit,  how  shall 
we  distinguish  principles  and  facts  of  real  science  from  mere  assumptions, 
opinions,  beliefs,  conjectures,  or  guesses,  which  may  be  employed  as 
principles  or  facts  in  the  construction  of  systems  of  science  %  A  ready 
answer  can  now  be  given  to  this  inquiry,  an  answer  the  universal  and 
absolute  validity  of  which  must  be  admitted  as  soon  as  the  subject  is 
understood.     We  begin  with 

Principles  as  distinguished  from  mere  Assumptions. 

Affirmed  systems  of  science  may,  undeniably,  be  based  either  upon 
valid  principles,  or  upon  mere  assumptions,  that  is,  unauthorized  judg- 
ments employed  as  principles  in  the  construction  of  such  systems.  How 
shall  we  distinguish  the  former  from  the  latter  ?  Every  judgment  of  the 
former  class  has,  undeniably,  and  as  all  thinkers  admit,  these  immutable 
and  inseparable  characteristics,  absolute  universality  and  necessity.  In 
other  words,  it  is  absolutely  impossible  for  the  mind  to  conceive  that 
they  are  not,  and  must  not  be,  valid  in  themselves,  and  do  not  and 
must  not  hold  true  in  respect  to  all  objects  and  events  to  which  they  are 
applicable.  .  Take  as  example  such  judgments  as  these :  Things  equal  to 
the  same  things  are  equal  to  one  another;  A  whole  is  greater  than  any  of 
its  Parts  ;  Body  implies  space ;  Succession  implies  time  ;  Events  imply  a 
cause  ;  Phenomena  imply  substance  ;  In  every  appearance  some  reality 
appears ;  The  conditioned  implies  the  unconditioned ;  and.  It  is  impos- 
sible for  the  same  thing  at  the  same  moment  to  exist  and  not  exist. 
If  we  consider  any  one  of  these  judgments,  or  all  of  them  together,  we 
shall  perceive  absolutely  that  they,  one  and  all,  have  self-evident  validity, 
and  that  universally  ;  that  they  not  only  are  true,  but  that  they  cannot 
be  false,  and  cannot  but  hold  true  relatively  to  all  objects  and  events  to 
which  they  are  applicable.  Systems  of  knowledge  resting  upon  such 
principles  must  have  a  strictly  scientific  basis.     There  are  four,  and  only 


8  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY, 

four,  conditions  on  which  any  proposition  or  judgment  can  have  self-evident 
validity.  They  are  the  following  :  1.  When  the  subject  and  predicate 
are  identical,  as  in  the  judgment,  A  is  A;  these  are  mere  tautological  judg- 
ments, and,  of  course,  are  of  no  use  in  science.  2.  When  the  predicate 
represents  an  essential  element  of  our  conception  of  the  subject,  as  in  the 
judgment,  All  bodies  have  extension  ;  these  are  explicative  judgments,  and, 
as  such,  have  important  uses  in  science.  3.  When  the  subject  implies 
the  predicate,  as  in  the  judgment.  Body  implies  space  ;  as  in  all  such 
cases  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  the  reality  of  the  object  represented  by 
the  subject  without  affirming  the  same  of  that  represented  by  the  predi- 
cate, all  such  judgments  do  and  must  have  universal  and  necessary 
validity.  These  are  called  implied  or  implicative  judgments,  and  may  be 
and  are  employed  as  principles  in  all  the  sciences.  4.  When  the  subject 
sustains  to  the  predicate  the  relation  of  absolute  and  intuitive  incom- 
patibility, and  the  judgment  affirms  that  relation,  as  in  the  judgments, 
It  is  impossible  for  the  same  thing  at  the  same  time  to  exist  and  not  to 
exist ;  and,  A  strait  line  cannot  enclose  a  space.  All  the  axioms  and 
principles  in  all  the  sciences  belong  to  one  or  the  other  of  the  two  classes 
last  named,  the  positive  to  the  former,  and  the  negative  to  the  latter. 
No  judgment  can  have  universal  and  necessary  validity,  but  upon  one 
of  the  four  conditions  above  specified,  for  the  reason  that  it  is  utterly 
impossible  for  the  mind  even  to  conceive  of  any  other  condition  on  which 
any  judgment  can  possess  self-evident,  universal,  and  necessary  validity. 
We  thus  have  an  absolutely  valid  test  by  which  we  can  infallibly  deter- 
mine the  character  and  claims  of  any  proposition  or  judgment  which 
may  be  employed  as  a  first  principle  in  science.  Any  judgment  not 
having  any  one  of  these  characteristics  is  to  be  rejected,  together  with 
the  system  based  upon  it,  as  utterly  void  of  validity. 

What,  as  distinguished  from  valid  principles  in  science,  are  assump- 
tions'? They  are,  we  answer,  judgments  having  no  self-evident  validity 
in  themselves,  which  have  not,  if  true,  been  verified  as  true,  or  which 
may  be  false  in  fact ;  judgments  which  are,  nevertheless,  employed  as 
principles  in  the  construction  of  systems  of  science.  All  systems  resting 
upon  assumptions  instead  of  valid  principles,  whatever  their  charac- 
teristics in  other  respects,  and  whatever  names  they  may  represent,  are 
nothing  but  logical  fictions.  When  any  system  has  been  ascertained 
and  shown  to  rest  on  such  a  basis,  no  further  examination  of  its  claim  is 
required.  It  is  to  be  esteemed  and  treated  as  an  uosubstantial  creation 
of  false  scieuoo. 


PHILOSOPHY  IN  THE  EMPIRE  OF  WORLD-THOUGHT.  9 

Opinions,  Beliefs,  Conjectures,  etc.,  as  distinguished  from  Facts  of  real 

Knowledge. 

But  how  shall  we  distinguish  real  knowledge  pertaining  to  realities 
and  facts  from  mere  opinions,  beliefs,  and  conjectures  pertaining  to  the 
same  objects?  Phenomena  of  the  class  last  named,  we  answer,  may  be 
and  often  are  changed,  varied,  or  utterly  and  for  ever  displaced  from 
human  regard.  We  may  hold  one  opinion  or  form  of  belief  to-day,  and 
its  opposite  to-morrow.  Forms  of  belief  which  for  ages,  it  may  be, 
have  had  absolute  authority  in  human  regard,  may,  by  increase  of  know- 
ledge, be  utterly  displaced  from  human  thought  and  regard.  Real 
knowledge,  on  the  other  han.^,  has  the  character  of  absolute  immutability. 
So  far  as  we  really  and  truly  know  an  object,  our  convictions  pertaining 
to  it  can  never  by  any  possibility  be  either  changed  or  modified. 

Mutability,  then,  is  the  fixed  characteristic  which  reveals  and  dis- 
tinguishes all  mental  apprehensions  and  judgments  as  mere  opinions, 
beliefs,  conjectures  or  guesses.  Absolute  immutability,  on  the  other  hand, 
as  absolutely  reveals,  characterizes,  and  distinguishes  from  all  other 
phenomena  real  knowledge  in  dl  its  forms.  When  we  have  apprehen- 
sions and  convictions  relatively  to  any  objects  or  facts,  apprehensions  and 
convictions  which  neither  reasoning,  nor  sophistry,  nor  any  increase  of 
knowledge  or  forms  of  experience  can  displace,  change,  or  modify,  here  we 
find  ourselves  in  the  presence  of  real  knowledge,  or  knowledge  in  no  form 
has  place  in  human  thought  Who  will  question  the  validity  of  the 
above  distinctions  and  criteria?  All  systems  of  error,  then,  have  their 
basis  in  assumptions,  or  are  constituted  in  their  superstructure  of  mere 
beliefs,  opinions,  conjectures,  or  guesses  at  truth.  All  systems  of  real 
science  have  for  their  basis  universal  and  necessary  principles,  and  in 
their  superstructure  are  constituted  exclusively  of  the  forms  and  elements 
of  real  knowledge. 

Intuitions  and  Forms  of  Belief  which  take  rise  frmn  Intuitions. 
We  can  now  understand  how  it  is  that  real  intuitions  are  often  con- 
founded with  forms  of  belief  which  are  sometimes  connected  with  and 
take  rise  from  the  former,  and  how  it  is  that  the  validity  of  the  former 
is  called  in  question  from  the  fact  that  the  latter  is  found  to  be  false. 
From  the  appearance  of  the  earth  as  visible  to  the  eye,  the  race  once 
held  that  our  globe  is  a  vast  plane,  dotted  with  mountains,  hills,  valleys, 
lakes  and  oceans.  The  visible  is  the  object  of  intuition.  The  judgment 
that  the  earth  is  a  plane,  and  not  a  globe,  is  an  unauthorized  inference 
deduced  from  the  intuition,  an  opinion  which  a  wider  induction  of  facta 
proved  to  be  false.  From  the  actual  visibilities  of  the  earth,  as  related 
to  the  sun,  the  moon,  and  the  stars,  men  once  inferred  that  all   th9 


lo  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

heaveuly  bodies  moved  daily  round  the  earth.  What  was  actually  seen 
is  one  thing  ;  an  inference  deduced  from  visible  facts  is  quite  another.  In 
what  was  really  seen  we  have  facts  of  actual  intuitive  knowled-^e.  In  what 
was  inferred  we  have  opinions,  beliefs,  conjectures,  in  all  of  which  there 
is  a  liability  to  error.  The  same  holds  true  in  all  similar  cases.  In  all 
appearances,  even  in  what  are  called  the  optical  illusions  of  mirage,  some 
reality  appears.  In  what  actually  appears  we  have  facts  of  intuition,  and 
here  is  real  knowledge.  In  what  is  inferred  from  such  facts,  here,  and 
only  here,  is  the  illusion.  Such  discriminations  must  be  made  every- 
where ;  otherwise  we  shall  confound  truth  with  error. 

Condition  op  real  Knowledge. 

Science,  as  we  have  seen,  is  knowledge  systematized.  A  question  of 
fundamental  importance  here  presents  itself — to  wit,  What  is  the  immu- 
table condition  of  real  knowledge  %  To  this  question  but  one  answer  can 
be  given  :  Knowledge  implies  a  subject  possessed  of  the  capacity  or  power  to 
know,  and  an  object  so  correlated  to  this  faculty,  that  when  the  proper  condi- 
tions are  fulfilled,  knowledge  of  said  object  necessarily  arises,  in  consequence  of 
that  reciprocal  relation.  On  no  other  condition  is  it  possible  for  us  even 
to  conceive  of  the  existence  or  possibility  of  knowledge.  If  knowledge 
exists  at  all,  it  must  be,  we  repeat,  because  there  exists  a  faculty  which  is, 
relatively  to  some  object,  a  power  of  knowing,  and  an  object  which  is, 
relatively  to  such  power,  an  object  of  knowledge;  and  the  power  and 
object  in  such  relations  to  each  other,  that  real  knowledge  arises  in  con- 
sequence of  this  relation.  Let  anyone  attempt  to  conceive  of  the  fact  or 
possibility  of  a  knowledge  of  any  object  whatever  on  any  other  condition 
than  the  one  before  us,  and  he  will  find  himself  utterly  unable  to  form 
such  a  conception.  We  have  here,  then,  the  one  absolute  condition  of 
real  knowledge — a  condition  which  properly  takes  rank  as  a  principle  of 
science. 

The  Question,  What  can  we  Know  ? — how  Answered. 

The  question,  What  can  we  know?  can  be  correctly  answered  but  by  a 
valid  answer  to  another — to  wit,  What  do  we  know,  and  what  is  implied 
by  facts  of  actual  knowledge  1  A  priori,  we  cannot  determine  whether 
any  or  what  faculties  or  objects  of  knowledge  do,  or  do  not,  exist.  The 
existence  and  nature  of  all  powers  and  causes  of  every  kind  are  revealed 
and  determined,  not  A  priori,  but  exclusively,  by  the  known  effects 
which  they  produce,  and  through  what  is  implied  by  such  effects.  So  of 
a  power  of  knowledge.  The  existence  and  nature  of  said  power  can,  by 
no  possibility,  be  determined  but  through  facts  of  actual  knowledge.  The 
question,  What  can  we  know  1  together  with  the  other  question,  What 


PHILOSOPHY  IN  THE  EMPIRE  OF  WORLD-THOUGHT.  II 

are  the  extent  and  limits  of  valid  knowledge?  is  determinable,  we  repeat, 
only  throiigh  a  valid  determination  of  the /ads  and  objects  of  actual  know- 
ledge, and  what  is  implied  by  the  same.  We  have  in  the  answer  now 
given  to  the  question.  What  can  we  know  1  another  immutable  principle 
of  universal  science.  Any  other  answer  to  this  question  conducts  us,  not 
in  the  direction  of  true,  but  of  false  science.  The  fundamental  postulate 
of  all  the  sciences,  is  the  existence  of  the  intelligence  as  a  faculty  with 
correlated  objects  of  valid  knowledge.  Take  away  this  one  postulate,  and 
we  have  undeniably  no  basis  for  scientific  induction  or  deduction  in  any 
direction  whatever.  If  no  reality  is  known  and  recognizable  as  known, 
we  have  self-evidently  nothing,  not  even  knowledge  itself,  to  systematize, 
explain,  or  elucidate.  No  principles  are,  or  can  be,  of  more  fundamental 
importance  and  authority  in  science  than  those  just  defined,  together  with 
the  criteria  previously  given — criteria  by  which  we  can  infallibly  dis- 
tinguish, in  respect  to  principles  and  facts  of  science,  all  forms  of  valid 
knowledge  from  assumptions,  beliefs,  opinions,  and  conjectures  which  en- 
ter, as  constituent  elements,  into  all  systems  of  '  science  falsely  so-called. 

Conditions,  Ex;tbnt,  and  Limits  op  Valid  Knowledge  as  Affirmed  in 
ALL  Systems  of  Materialism  and  Idealism. 
The  conditions,  extent,  and  limits  of  valid  knowledge  as  affirmed  by 
the  founders  and  advocates  of  Materialism  on  the  one  hand,  and  Idealism 
on  the  other,  now  claim  a  moment's  attention.  Materialism,  as  taught  by 
all  its  advocates,  affirms  the  absolute  impossibility  of  valid  knowledge,  but 
upon  one  exclusive  condition — that  the  object  shall  be  external  to  the 
faculty  of  knowledge.  In  other  words,  we  can  have  no  real  knowledge 
of  any  realities  but  such  as  are  external  to  us.  Idealism,  on  the  other 
hand,  denies  absolutely  the  possibility  of  all  knowledge  of  outward 
objects.  In  the  different  schools  of  idealism,  the  condition  of  valid 
knowledge  is  expressed  in  two  forms  :  1.  That  there  must  be  a  '  synthesis 
of  being  and  knowing ;'  that  is,  that  the  subject  and  object  of  knowledge 
must  be  one  and  identical.  This  is  the  condition  on  which,  as  a  prin- 
ciple, pantheism  and  subjective  idealism  are  in  fact  and  form  based. 
2.  '  An  absolute  identity  of  being  and  knowledge ;'  that  is,  that  knowledge 
itself  and  the  object  of  knowledge  must  be  one  and  identical.  It  is  a 
question  in  dispute  among  German  thinkers  whether  Schelling  op  Hegel 
first  auuounced  this  condition  as  a  principle  in  scieuca 

Remarks  on  these  Hypotheses. 

On  these  hypotheses  we  have  the  following  fundamental  remarks  to 
offer : 

1.  The  condition  of  valid  knowledge,  in  neither  of  the  forms  above 
announced,  has  even  the  appearance  of  self-evident  certainty,  and  con- 


A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


sequently  has  no  claim  whatever  to  the  place  in  the  sphere  of  thought 
assigned  to  said  condition  by  its  advocates — to  wit,  that  of  a  principle  in 
science — a  principle  which  has  universal  and  necessary  validity.  Know- 
ledge not  merely  in  one,  but  in  three  distinct  forms,  and  the  consequent 
existence  of  corresponding  powers  of  knowledge,  are  equally  conceivable, 
and,  therefore,  in  themselves  possible.  We  can  conceive  of  an  intelligence 
to  which  nothing  but  a  knowledge  of  external  objects  is  possible. 
Equally  conceivable  is  an  intelligence  capacitated  exclusively  for  subjec- 
tive knowledge,  or  of  one  which  shall  know  its  own  knowledge.  Finally, 
we  can  with  equal  facility  conceive  of  a  power  of  intelligence  to  which 
knowledge  in  all  these  three  forms  shall  be  both  possible  and  actual.  All 
this  is  undeniable.  How,  then,  can  we  determine  under  which  of  the 
above  conceptions  the  human  intelligence  shall  be  classed  ?  Not  d,  priori, 
as  is  attempted  in  each  of  the  schools  under  consideration.  A  penny  is 
about  to  be  thrown  into  the  air.  We  should  regard  an  individual  as 
demented  who  should  affirm  himself  possessed  of  the  power  to  determine 
by  h priori  insight,  and  that  with  absolute  certainty,  which  side  will  fall 
uppermost.  Equally  removed  from  such  insight  are  the  three  cases  under 
consideration.  The  possibility  of  knowledge  in  any  one  form  designated 
is  just  as  conceivable,  and,  therefore,  as  probable  in  any  given  case  as  in 
any  of  the  others.  A  priori,  it  is  just  as  possible  and  probable  in  itself 
that  the  human  intelligence  is  capacitated  for  real  knowledge  in  all  these 
forms,  as  in  any  one  of  them. 

The  question  before  us,  then,  is  to  be  determined  wholly  and  exclu- 
sively b,  posteriori  ;  that  is,  by  reference  to  actual  facts  of  consciousness. 
If  we  are  actually  conscious  of  knowledge,  but  in  one  exclusive  form,  the 
objective  or  subjective,  or  of  actually  knowing  no  other  object  but  the 
mere  act  of  knowing  itself,  such,  we  are  to  affirm,  are  the  nature,  extent, 
and  limits  of  our  faculty  of  knowledge.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  are 
absolutely  conscious  of  actual  knowledge  in  all  these  forms,  upon  this 
adamantine  fact  we  are  to  base  our  deductions  in  regard  to  the  nature, 
extent,  and  limits  of  the  human  intelligence  as  a  faculty  of  knowledge. 
The  hypothesis  of  Materialism,  and  those  of  Idealism  in  all  its  forms, 
stand  revealed  as  mere  lawless  assumptions,  and  nothing  else. 

2.  While  the  hypothesis  of  Materialism  on  the  one  hand,  and  those  of 
Idealism  on  the  other,  are  utterly  incompatible  the  one  with  the  other, 
the  evidence  in  favour  of  the  claims  of  the  former  is  absolutely  equal  to 
that  in  favour  of  the  latter.  The  possibility  of  knowledge  in  its  objec- 
tive is  just  as  conceivable  as  in  its  subjective  forms.  No  b,  priori  proof, 
evidence,  or  antecedent  probability,  can  be  adduced  in  favour  of  one  as 
against  the  other.  The  evidence  d,  posteriori,  also,  is  balanced  with  equal 
absoluteness.  We  are  as  perfectly  conscious  of  actual  knowledge  in  one 
form  as  iu  the  other.     No  possible  argument  can  be  adduced  in  favour  of 


PHILOSOPHY  IN  THE  EMPIRE  OF  WORLD-THOUGHT.  13 

one  hypothesis,  an  argument  which  does  not  bear  with  equal  absoluteness 
in  favour  of  the  other. 

3.  In  the  clearest  possible  testimony  of  universal  consciousness  we 
have  absolute  disproof  of  both  these  hypotheses.  If  we  are  conscious  of 
anything,  we  are  conscious,  and  equally  so,  of  actual  knowledge,  both  in  its 
subjective  and  objective  forma  In  every  act  of  external  perception,  for 
example,  we  are  just  as  absolutely  conscious  of  knovving  '  things  without 
us,'  as  we  are  of  knowing  facts  of  internal  experience.  To  deny  this  is, 
in  the  language  of  Sir  William  Hamilton,  to  affirm  '  consciousness  to  be  a 
liar  from  the  beginning,' 

4.  Each  of  these  hypotheses,  by  impeaching  the  validity  of  conscious- 
ness in  one  form,  implies  the  absolute  impossibility  of  real  knowledge  in 
any  form.  Each  hypothesis  denies  absolutely  the  validity  of  conscious- 
ness in  one  of  its  known  forms.  If  this  faculty,  as  is  affirmed,  funda- 
mentally deceives  us  in  one  form,  it  is  to  be  trusted  nowhere.  Each  of 
these  hypotheses  actually  saps  the  foundation  of  knowledge  in  ".very 
sphere,  actual  and  conceivable. 

5.  The  hypothesis  of  Pure  Idealism,  that  of  '  absolute  identity  of  being 
and  knowing ' — that  is,  that  knowledge  itself  and  the  object  of  knowledge 
are  always  one  and  identical — is  of  utterly  inconceivable  and  impossible 
validity.  Thought  without  a  thinker,  ideas  existing  nowhere  and  in 
no  time,  and  existing  as  the  attributes  of  no  real  being,  phenomena 
without  substance,  events  without  causes,  and  knowledge  without  a 
subject  or  object,  except  knowledge  itself — can  a  greater  absurdity  have 
place  in  this  or  any  other  world  ?  It  was  well  said  by  a  great  German 
philosopher  that  the  system  of  Hegel,  which  was  based  upon  this  hypo- 
thesis, was  *  nothing  in  itself  nor  of  itself ;  nor  was  its  author  in  himself, 
but  beside  himself,'  We  can  affirm  with  perfect  safety  that  any  professed 
system  of  science  which  has  its  basis  in  either  of  the  above  hypotheses 
must  be  void  of  all  claims  to  truth,  if  that  hypothesis  is  not  and  cannot 
be  verified. 

SECTION  in 

FOUR,  AND  BUT  POUR,  REALITIES  ARE  REPRESENTED,  OR  ARE 
REPRESENTABLE,  IN  HUMAN  THOUGHT. 

We  now  advance  to  a  consideration  of  the  hypothesis  which  lies  at 
the  foundation  of  this  entire  Treatise,  the  hypothesis  about  which  all  the 
inductions,  deductions,  expositions,  and  elucidations  of  said  Treatise 
revolve.  The  hypothesis  is  this ;  Four,  and  but  four,  realities  ever  have 
been,  or  by  any  possihility  can  be,  represented  as  realities  in  human  thought. 
We  refer,  of  course,  to  spirit  and  matter,  time  and  space.  Whatever  is 
represented  or  representable  as  real,  must  of  necessity  be  apprehended  as 


14  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

one  or  the  other  of  these  realities,  or  as  a  property,  attribute,  state  or 
effect  of  the  same.  The  reason  is  obvious  and  undeniable.  Nothing  else 
is  the  object  of  perception  external  or  internal,  and  no  other  reality  is  implied 
hy  what  we  perceive. 

Body  and  its  qualities,  of  which  we  become  conscious  through  external, 
and  mind  with  its  operations,  of  which  we  become  conscious  in  internal, 
perception,  do  imply  the  reality  of  time  and  space,  and  imply  nothing 
else.  Time  and  space  by  themselves  do  not  imply  the  reality  of  either 
matter  or  spirit,  much  less,  if  possible,  do  they  imply  any  other  reality. 
Undeniably,  no  reality  is  or  can  be  representable  in  human  thought  but 
objects  of  external  and  internal  perception,  and  such  as  are  implied  by 
what  we  perceive.  All  must  admit  that  no  other  realities  are  the  con- 
scious objects  of  perception,  external  or  internal,  but  matter  and  spirit, 
with  their  phenomena,  and  that  these  imply  no  other  realities  but  time 
and  space.  These  realities  are,  undeniably,  represented  in  human 
thought,  and  it  is  equally  manifest  that  none  others  can  be  thus  re- 
presented. 

Let  anyone  attempt  to  form  a  positive  conception  of  some  reality 
which  is  neither  matter,  spirit,  time,  nor  space,  and  he  will  find  that  he 
has  attempted  an  utter  impossibility.  The  reason  is  obvious.  No 
elements  of  thought  exist,  elements  out  of  which  such  a  conception  can 
by  any  possibility  be  constructed.  All  ideas  in  the  mind,  and  all 
language  also,  take  exclusive  form  from  our  apprehensions  of  these  four 
realities,  and  of  their  apprehended  attributes,  properties  or  phenomena. 
Whatever  is  apprehended  as  not  being  one  or  the  other  of  these  realities, 
or  their  properties  or  phenomena,  is,  of  necessity,  apprehended  as  nothing 
— as  no  reality  at  all.  Thoughts  of  such  realities  must  be  utterly  object- 
less, and  as  wholly  void  of  content  in  themselves;  while  the  words 
representing  such  ideas  must  be  totally  void  of  meaning.  Human 
thought  is  necessarily  limited  to  these  four  realities,  their  nature,  attri- 
butes, properties,  phenomena,  and  mutual  relations  included. 

Nature,  Character,  and  Mutual  Eelations  op  these  four  Eealities. 

Questions  of  fundamental  importance  here  arise;  namely.  What  are  the 
essential  characteristics,  as  represented  in  human  thought,  of  these  four 
realities  ?  What  are  their  mutual  relationships,  the  one  to  each  of  the 
others?  and  what  are  their  relations  as  objects  of  knowledge  to  the 
human  intelligence  ?  These  questions,  as  we  believe,  admit  of  definite 
answers,  and  may  be  settled  upon  purely  scientific  grounds.  Let  us 
proceed  to  the  accomplishment  of  these  objecta. 


FOUR  REALITIES  IN  HUMAN  THOUGHT.  15 

All  these  Realities  are  distinctly  represented  in  Human  Thought. 
Our  first  position  is  this,  all  these  realities  are,  in  fact,  distinctly 
represented  in  human  thought.  No  individual,  young  or  old,  learned  or 
unlearned — an  individual  of  common  understanding — misapprehends 
us  when  we  speak  to  him  of  matter  or  spirit,  time  or  spaca  ]S"or  does 
he  ever  confound  any  one  of  these  realities  with  any  other.  In  all 
languages,  also,  specific  terms  are  employed  to  represent  each  of  these 
realities.  In  all  systems  of  Philosophy,  too,  the  existence  of  all  these 
realities,  and  the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  the  same,  are  affirmed  or 
denied,  and  that  in  forms  which  imply  the  absolute  universality  and 
identity  of  human  apprehension  of  all  these  existences.  When  philoso- 
phers, for  example,  deny  the  existence  of  any  one  of  these  realities,  or 
impeach  the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  the  same,  no  one  misunder- 
stands them.  Such  facts  absolutely  evince  the  existence  in  all  minds  of 
the  apprehensions,  clear  and  distinct,  of  all  these  four  realities.  Nor 
will  real  thinkers  of  any  school  deny  the  validity  of  these  statements. 

No  other  Reality  is  or  can  he  represented  in  Human  Thought 
Nor  is  any  other  reality  represented  in  human  thought ;  nor  can  we 
receive  any  such  representation  until  some  fifth  entity,  having  none  of 
the  properties  of  any  of  these,  is  distinctly  manifested  to  us.  A  piim'i, 
we  cannot  determine  what  realities  do  or  do  not  exist  in  time  and  space. 
A  posteriori,  we  perceive,  and  consequently  know  of  none  but  material 
or  mental  entities,  together  with  their  attributes,  properties,  and  relations. 
Nor  of  any  efiects  ever  perceived  by  us,  are  we  able  to  affirm  absolutely 
that  they  are  not  the  phenomena  of  material  or  spiritual  entities.  No 
philosopher  has  ever  witnessed  a  single  phenomenon  not  connected  with 
one  or  other  of  these  substances.  Pure  idealists  give  us  a  system  which 
has  uo  material  or  spiritual  substance  in  it.  Every  constituent  element 
of  that  system,  however,  is  taken,  body  and  soul,  from  one  of  the  known 
attributes  of  one  of  these  substances — to  wit,  thought.  Suppose  that  all 
of  these  realities,  with  all  their  attributes,  properties,  and  mutual  rela- 
tions, were  left  out.  Where  would  be  our  material  for  the  construction 
of  any  system,  or  for  the  formation  of  any  conception  of  any  reality 
whatever  ?  The  fact  that,  in  such  circumstances,  we  can  have  no  thought- 
representations  of  any  realities  of  any  kind,  evinces  absolutely  that  the 
elemt^uts  uf  all  our  conceptions  and  ideas  are  derived  wholly  from  these 
four  realities. 

These  Realities  wholly  unlike  each  other. 
We  remark,  in  the  next  place,  that  as  represented  in  human  thought, 
each  of  these  realities  is  wholly  unlike  every  other.     There  is  not  an 
ea^ential  property  or  attribute  of  any  one  of  them  that,  in  any  form. 


l6  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

resembles  any  property  or  attribute  which,  as  represented  in  human 
thought,  pertains  to  either  of  the  others.  When  we  have  fully  analyzed 
our  apprehensions  of  space,  for  example,  we  cannot  find  in  the  idea  a 
single  element  which  can  be  found  in  our  apprehension  of  either  of  the 
other  realities.  So  in  all  other  cases.  When  we  compare  our  concep- 
tions of  matter  and  spirit,  we  find  in  these  conceptions  no  common 
elements.  What  is  there  in  thought,  feeling,  and  acts  of  will,  which 
include  all  the  attributes  of  mind,  that  in  any  sense  resembles  extension 
and  form,  essential  properties  of  matter — that  is,  whenever  we  compare 
these  realities  as  actually  represented  in  human  thought  ?  We  some- 
times, but  never  in  the  same  sense,  employ  the  same  term  to  represent 
certain  properties  of  each  of  these  realities.  We  speak,  for  example,  of 
body,  space,  and  time,  as  having  extension.  .  But  neither,  as  represented 
in  thought,  has  extension  in  the  same  sense  and  form  that  either  of  the 
others  has.  The  fact  is  undeniable  that,  as  represented  in  our  appre- 
hensions, each  of  these  realities  is  wholly  unlike  every  other.  We  may, 
by  assumption,  resolve  matter  into  spirit,  and  spirit  into  matter,  and 
time  and  space  into  mere  laws  of  thought.  In  our  actual  apprehensions, 
however,  they  are  still  the  same  distinct,  separate,  and  dissimilar  realities 
that  they  were  before.  We  may  assume  that  certain  movements  of 
matter  eliminate  thought  and  other  mental  acts  and  states,  and  that  the 
content  of  all  objects  of  external  perception  is  sensation,  a  mere  feeling 
of  the  mind.  But  we  can  no  more  conceive  matter  as  exercising  the 
functions  of  spirit,  or  as  identical  with  any  mental  state,  than  we 
can  conceive  of  the  annihilation  of  time  or  space.  We  can  as 
readily  conceive  of  empty  space  as  actually  thinking,  feeling,  and 
willing,  or  as  possessed  of  the  properties  of  solidity  and  form,  as  in 
thought  to  affirm  the  former  class  of  phenomena  to  be  functions  of  matter, 
or  the  latter  to  be  attributes  of  mind.  Some  scientists  have  assured  us 
that  in  dissecting  and  analyzing  a  dead  man's  brains,  they  have  dis- 
covered the  identical  process  by  which  matter  eliminates  thought.  With 
just  as  great  a  show  of  wisdom  they  might  affirm  that  they  had  discovered 
and  demonstrated  that  the  powers  of  thought,  feeling,  and  willing, 
together  with  that  of  gravitation,  necessarily  inhere  as  essential  pro- 
perties in  a  circle  or  square.  Thought,  with  all  the  other  functions  of 
mind,  is  not  at  a  greater  remove  from  our  apprehensions  of  a  triangle 
than  it  is  from  that  of  matter.  Of  the  validity  of  all  these  statements 
every  mind  must  be  absolutely  conscious. 

Th^e  liealities  differ  equally  relatively  to  our  Manner  of  Perceiving  and 

Apprehending  them. 
If  we  contemplate  these  realities  with  reference  to  our  manner  of  per- 
ceiving and  apprehending  them,  we  shall  find  them  in  forms  equally 


FOUR  REALITIES  IN  HUMAN  THOUGHT.  17 

fiinrlainental,  distinguished  and  peculiarized,  the  one  from  each  of  the 
others.  Matter,  we  consciously  perceive,  in  all  its  properties,  as  an 
exterior  object  distinct  and  separate  from  ourselves.  Of  mind,  in  all 
its  functions  and  operations,  we  are  conscious  as  the  object  of  internal 
perception.  As  thus  perceived,  these  realities  are  never  in  thought  con- 
founded, but  for  ever  separated,  the  one  from  the  other.  Space  we  are 
conscious  of  apprehending  as  implied  by  body,  which  we  perceive,  and  as 
the  place  of  the  same.  Time  we  apprehend  as  implied  by  successive 
events  of  which  we  are  conscious,  and  as  the  place  of  such  events.  As 
related  to  our  manner  of  perceiving  and  apprehending  them,  each  of 
these  realities  thus  stands  at  an  infinite  remove  from  every  other. 

There  are  two  peculiarities  which  separate  time  and  space,  with  their 
properties,  from  spirit  and  matter,  with  their  phenomena.  The  former 
we  apprehend  as  existing,  with  the  impossibility  of  conceiving  of  their 
non-existence,  or  as  being  in  any  respects  different  from  our  apprehensions 
of  them.  Matter  and  spirit  we  apprehend  as  realities,  with  the  pos- 
sibility of  conceiving  of  their  non-being.  While  we  cannot  conceive  of 
space  or  time  as  not  existing,  we  can  conceive  of  them  as  unoccupied  by 
substances  and  events.  We  therefore  classify  our  ideas  of  the  former 
realities  as  necessary,  and  those  of  matter  and  spirit  as  contingent,  ideas. 
Time  and  space,  also,  are,  though  in  different  senses,  apprehended  as 
absolutely  infinite  and  unlimited  ;  the  former  in  the  past  and  future,  and 
the  latter  in  all  directions.  Matter  and  our  own  spirits,  in  senses  equally 
special  and  peculiar,  are  apprehended  as  finite  and  limited ;  the  former 
as  existing  in  and  occupying  space,  and  the  latter  in  the  range  of  its 
faculties.  Thus  distinct  and  separated  in  human  thought  and  appre- 
hension is  each  of  these  realities  from  every  other.  In  this  light  true 
science  must  and  will  recognize  them. 

These  Realities  sustain  to  each  other  fixed  and  definable  relations. 

While  these  realities,  as  universally  represented  in  human  thought,  are 
thus  unlike,  distinct,  and  dissimilar,  each  from  every  other,  they  all 
sustain  to  each  other  fixed  and  definable  relations.  Some  of  these  we 
have  already  specified.  Space  and  time  are  apprehended  as  the  places 
of  substances  and  events,  and  as  the  necessary  conditions  of  their  exist- 
ence and  occurrence.  We  cannot  conceive  of  substances  and  events 
without  apprehending  them  as  existing  somewhere,  that  is,  in  space, 
and  as  occurring  in  definite  periods  of  time.  The  ideas  of  space  and 
time  also  render  conceivable  the  possibility  of  the  existence  and  occur- 
rence of  substances  and  events.  If  the  former  are  not  leal,  the  latter 
cannot  be. 

While  our  ideas  of  space  and  time,  that  is,  necessary  ideas,  are  thus 
universally  given  as  the  logical  antecedents  of  coutingeut  ideas,  those  of 

2 


l8  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

matter  and  spirit,  and  in  the  order  of  prip;!  nation  in  the  mind,  that  is,  con- 
tingent ideas,  as  universally  precede  necessary  ones.  Space  and  time  are 
apprehended  but  as  the  places  of  substances  and  events,  and  as  implied  by 
the  same.  In  no  other  forms  can  the  former  be  defined.  It  is  self-evident 
that  a  reality  which  is  and  can  be  apprehended,  but  as  the  place  of,  and 
as  implied  by,  some  other  reality,  cannot  have  been  apprehended  before 
the  latter.  Contingent  ideas,  then,  must  have  been  originated  in  the 
mind  before  necessary  ones  eould  have  been.  These  relations,  the  logical 
and  chronological  order  of  these  ideas,  should  be  clearly  apprehended  and 
kept  distinctly  in  mind,  as  they  will  hereafter  be  found  to  be  of  funda- 
mental importance  in  the  explanation  of  different  systems  of  Philosophy. 

Another  relation  of  equal  importance  between  our  apprehensions  of 
these  realities  here  claims  special  attention.  We  refer  to  the  relation  of 
absolute  compatibility.  There  is  absolutely  nothing  in  our  ideas  of  any  one 
of  these  realities  in  the  remotest  degree  incompatible  with  our  appre- 
hensions of  either  of  the  others.  The  idea  that  space  is  a  reality  in  itself 
is  in  no  sense  or  form  incompatible  with  the  idea  that  time  is  also,  and 
in  the  same  sense,  real.  The  idea  that  space  and  time  are  realities  in 
themselves  is  equally  compatible  with  the  conception  that  matter  and 
spirit  are  also  realities  in  themselves.  Nothing  is  or  can  be  more  self- 
evident  than  this,  that  an  implied  reality  cannot  be  incompatible  with 
the  reality  by  which  the  former  is  implied,  and  that  the  latter  cannot  be 
incompatible  with  the  former.  The  same  relation  of  absolute  com- 
patibility exists  between  our  apprehensions  of  matter  and  spirit.  Matter 
is  apprehended  as  relatively  to  spirit  an  object,  and  the  latter  as  a  faculty, 
of  knowledge.  The  conception  of  the  reality  of  one  is  in  no  sense  or  form 
incompatible  with  that  of  the  other.  Matter  is  apprehended  as  a  substance 
existing  in  and  occupying  space,  and,  consequently,  as  possessed,  among 
others,  of  the  qualities  of  real  extension  and  form.  lilind  is  apprehended 
as  an  immaterial  substance  exercising  the  functions  of  thought,  feeling, 
and  willing.  The  idea  that  the  object  of  the  former  apprehension  exists 
as  a  reality  in  itself  in  no  sense  whatever  contradicts  the  idea  that  the 
object  of  the  latter  exists  as  a  similar  reality.  Nor  can  we  find,  on  the 
most  rigid  scrutiny,  in  one  of  these  apprehensions,  a  single  element  in  the 
remotest  degree  contradictory  to  any  element  existing  in  the  other.  How, 
for  example,  can  extension,  form,  colour  and  attraction,  existing  as 
qualities  in  one  substance,  be  in  the  remotest  degree  incompatible  with 
any  form  of  thought,  feeling,  and  willing,  existing  as  attributes  of  another 
substance  ? 

These  Apprehensions  not  Self -contradictory. 

Nor,  we  remark  finally,  can  any  self-contradictory  elements  be  found 
in  our  apprehensions  of  any  one  of  these  realities,  elements  which  prove 
Buch  apprehension  to  be  invalid  for  the  reality  and  character  of  its  object. 


FOUR  REALITIES  IN  HUMAN  THOUGHT.  19 

As  we  here  encounter  the  only  formal  argument  ever  adduced  against  the 
validity  of  our  knowledge  of  the  realities  under  consideration,  very  special 
attention  is  requested  to  what  we  have  now  to  offer.  Our  apprehensions 
of  each  of  these  realities  are,  it  is  affirmed,  self-contradictory,  and,  there- 
fore, invalid.  Let  us  see  if  any  such  contradictions  do  indeed  exist  in 
these  apprehensions.  Our  ideas  of  space  and  time  are  undeniably  abso- 
lutely simple  ideas,  and  can,  therefore,  by  no  possibility,  be  either  of 
them  self-contradictory.  The  fundamental  elements  of  contingent  ideas 
are  substance  and  attribute,  the  latter  implying  the  former.  Here,  un- 
deniably, is  not  the  remotest  appearance  of  self-contradiction.  The 
implied,  and  that  by  which  the  former  is  implied,  cannot  be  incompatible 
the  one  with  the  other.  The  same  holds  true  of  all  the  constituent  ele- 
ments relating  to  each  other,  elements  of  each  of  these  apprehensions. 
There  can  be  nothing,  for  example,  in  any  form  of  thought  that  is  incom- 
patible with  the  existence  of  any  feeling  ur  act  of  will,  facts  which  exist 
or  occur  in  the  mind.  Nor  is  there  the  remotest  appearance  of  incom- 
patibility between  any  one  of  these  classes  of  phenomena  and  any  other. 
The  idea  of  mind  as  possessed  of  threefold  capacities,  those  of  thought, 
feeling,  and  willing,  is  just  as  self-consistent  as  any  idea  can  be.  Analyze 
the  facts  of  mind  as  carefully  and  fully  as  may  be,  and  we  shall  find 
between  every  one  and  every  other  of  them  the  fixed  relation  of  absolute 
compatibility. 

In  respect  to  what  is  intrinsic  in  our  apprehensions  of  matter,  but  one 
seeming  contradiction  is  found,  and  this  not  in  the  idea  as  it  actually 
exists  in  the  mind,  but  in  another  substituted  for  this,  and  constituted  for 
the  occasion.  The  apprehension  actually  existing  in  the  mind  is  this : 
all  objects  of  external  perception  are  apprehended  as  compound  sub- 
stances constituted  of  simple  parts,  the  former  being  divisible,  and  the 
latter  wholly  incapable  of  being  divided,  the  simple,  also,  being  given 
not  as  perceived,  but  as  implied  by  the  compound  which  is  an  object  of 
perception.  Here,  again,  we  have  the  perceived  and  the  implied,  between 
which  there  can  by  no  possibility  be  any  real  nor  even  apparent  contra- 
diction. The  seeming  contradiction  is  thus  rendered  plausiWe.  Take 
any  material  object  we  please.  We  apprehend  it  as  a  whole,  made  up  of 
parts.  Conceive  this  object  divided,  and  then  form  a  conception  of 
either  of  the  parts.  The  result  will  be  that  this  new  conception  will  be 
found  to  be  like  the  first,  constituted  of  the  idea  of  a  whole  made  up  of 
parts.  Repeat  the  operation  as  long  and  often  as  we  please,  and  the  same 
result  will  be  obtained — the  conception  of  a  whole  made  up  of  parts. 
Hence  the  deduction  that  all  our  apprehensions  of  material  objects  are 
those  of  compounds  constituted  of  compounds,  which  is  self-contradictory. 
Our  apprehensions  of  material  objects  being  thus  self-contradictory,  the 
further  inference  is  deduced  that  such  apprehensions  cannot  be  vaUd  for 

2—2 


A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


the  reality  and  character  of  their  objects.  The  fallacy  involved  in  snch 
reasoning  is  obvious.  A  fiction  is  here  substituted  for  a  reality.  The 
actually  existing  apprehension  of  material  objects  is,  as  we  have  seen,  not 
that  of  a  compound  made  up  of  parts  which  are  themselves  compounded, 
and  capable  of  being  divided,  but  of  a  compound  constituted  of  absolute 
simples,  simples  which  cannot  be  separated  into  parts.  To  prove  the 
existence  of  contradictory  elements  in  any  conception,  we  must  take  that 
conception  as  actually  given,  and  not  as  it  is  not  given,  in  consciousness. 
The  conception  of  material  objects  actually  given  is  wholly  void  of  real 
or  apparent  contradiction.  The  fiction  substituted  for  what  is  real  has 
in  it  incompatible  elements.  The  manner  in  which  this  self-contradictory 
fiction  is  formed  may  be  readily  explained.  When  we  form  a  conception 
of  any  material  object,  we  employ  a  secondary  intellectual  faculty,  the 
understanding,  or  notion-forming  power  of  the  mind.  All  such  objects 
apprehended  through  this  faculty  must  be  conceived  of  as  wholes  con- 
stituted of  parts.  If  we  conceive  an  object  to  be  divided,  and  then, 
through  this  secondary  faculty,  form  a  conception  of  either  of  the  divided 
parts,  we  shall  obtain  the  same  result  as  before,  the  conception  of  a  com- 
pound constituted  of  parts.  Continue  the  process  of  division  and  of  con- 
ception as  long  as  we  please,  and  the  same  result  follows,  the  conception 
of  a  compound  made  up  of  parts.  Now,  it  is  not  through  such  a  process, 
or  by  means  of  this  conceptive  faculty,  that  we  obtain  our  idea  of  the 
simple  which  cannot  be  divided.  This  idea,  on  the  other  hand,  is  fur- 
nished wholly  through  a  primary  faculty,  the  reason,  the  organ  of  implied 
knowledge,  the  faculty  which  gives  us  the  necessary  elements  which  enter 
into  all  our  conceptions.  We  perceive  body,  succession  and  events. 
Reason,  on  occasion  of  such  perceptions,  apprehends  space,  time,  substance, 
and  cause,  as  necessarily  implied  by  what  we  perceive.  So,  when  we 
perceive  the  compound,  reason  apprehends  the  simple  as  implied  by  the 
jierceived.  The  understanding  blends  the  perceived  and  implied  elements 
into  the  conception  represented  by  the  term  body. 

between  the  perceived  and  implied  elements  constituting  this  con- 
ception, as  in  all  other  cases  of  perceived  and  implied  knowledge,  even 
the  appearance  of  incompatibility  or  self-contradiction  is  impossible.  It 
is  thus  demonstrably  evident  that  our  apprehensions  of  no  one  of  the 
realities  under  consideration  are  in  any  sense  or  form  incompatible  with 
those  of  any  other,  and  that  our  actual  apprehension  of  each  one  of  them 
is  equally  void  of  contradictory  elements. 

An  argument  against  the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  all  material 
objects  is  also  drawn  from  our  affirmed  apprehensions  of  the  infinite 
divisibility  of  matter.  On  the  one  hand,  it  is  affirmed  that  it  is  impos- 
sible for  us  to  conceive  of  n)atter  as  real  witiiout  conceiving  of  it  as 
being   infinitely    divisible.       On   the    otlier   hand,    infinite   divisibility 


FOUR  REALITIES  IN  HUMAN  THOUGHT.  2i 

cannot  be  represented  in  thought.  Hence  the  inference  that  our  ideas  of 
this  substance  cannot  be  valid.  Such  is  the  argument  of  Kant,  and  from 
him  as  given  by  Herbert  Spencer.  In  our  actual  apprehension  of  this 
substance,  as  we  have  seen,  it  is  not  conceived  at  all  as  being,  in  itself, 
infinitely  divisible,  but  the  opposite.  Suppose,  now,  that  we  can  or 
cannot  conreive  of  it  as  being  thus  divisible.  From  this  fact  we  cannot 
infer  that  it  does  not  exist  in  the  form  in  which  we  actually  conceive  it 
to  exist.  Who  doubts  the  actual  existence  in  space  of  a  straiglit  line  one 
inch  longi  Yet  all  that  Kant  and  Spencer  have  ?aid  about  the  divisi- 
bility of  matter  apply  in  fact  and  form,  as  shown  in  '  The  Science  of 
Natural  Theology,'  pp.  272,  273,  to  our  apprehensions  of  every  such 
line.  We  should  subject  ourselves  to  the  just  charge  of  infinite  stupidity 
if  we  should  infer  from  such  quibbling  that  no  such  lines  do  or  can  exist. 
So  of  the  same  identical  argument  against  the  validity  of  our  idea  of 
matter.  Matter  in  any  form,  as  conceived  by  the  understanding,  is  divisi- 
ble.    Not  so  of  its  constituent  elements  as  apprehended  by  the  reason. 

Necessary  Deductions  from  the  Principles  and  Facts  just  evinced  as  True. 

1.  Any  systems  of  science  or  Philosophy,  systems  built  upon  the  hypo- 
thesis that  the  relation  of  incompatibility  exists  between  our  apprehen- 
sions of  any  one  and  any  other  of  the  four  realities  under  consideration, 
or  that  any  of  these  apprehensions  are,  in  themselves,  self-contradictory 
— any  such  systems,  we  say,  have  place  nowhere  but  in  the  sphere  of 
*  science  falsely  so-called.'  They  can  have  no  claims  whatever  to  our 
regard  as  '  knowledge  systematized.' 

2.  Equally  void  of  all  claims  to  our  regard,  as  a  principle  in  science, 
is  the  hypothesis  that  lies  at  the  basis  of  Materialism  on  the  one  hand, 
and  of  Idealism  on  the  other,  to  wit,  that  there  exists  but  one  substance  or 
principle  of  all  things.  It  is  demonstrably  evident  that  no  form  of  proof, 
positive  evidence,  or  even  antecedent  probability,  can  be  adduced  in 
favour  of  this  hypothesis.  No  one  will  have  the  effrontery  to  claim 
for  it  the  prerogative  of  a  self-evident  judgment  The  predicate,  in 
this  case,  is,  undeniably,  neither  identical  with,  nor  does  it  represent 
an  essential  element  of,  the  subject,  nor  is  it  implied  by  the  subject.  In 
short,  this  hypothesis  has  not  one  of  the  immutable  characteristics  of 
a  self-evident  proposition  or  principle  in  science.  A  priori,  we  have 
just  as  much  authority  for  the  hypothesis  that  two  substances  exist, 
as  we  have,  or  can  have,  that  but  one  exists.  Nor  can  we  find,  in  the 
whole  range  of  human  thought,  a  single  principle  or  fact  which  renders 
it,  in  the  remotest  degree,  certain,  or  even  probable,  that  this  hypothesis 
is  true.  On  the  other  hand,  we  have  the  same  evidence  that  two  sub- 
stances, matter  and  spirit,  exist,  that  we  have,  or  can  have,  that  one  or 
the  other  of  them  does  exist     The  deduction  which  lies  at  the  basis  of 


A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


the  two  systems  under  consideration,  the  hypothesis  which  must  be  true, 
or  each  of  them  must  be  false,  is  nothing  but  a  mere  bald,  naked,  and 
lawless  assumption,  an  assumption  which  has  no  more  claims  to  our 
regards  as  a  principle  or  fact  in  science  than  can  be  claimed  for  the  greatest 
absurdity  that  was  ever  intruded  into  the  sphere  of  human  thought. 

3.  Our  next  deduction  is  this  :  no  form  nor  degree  of  disproof,  posi- 
tive evidence,  or  antecedent  probability  can,  by  any  possibility,  be 
adduced  against  the  validity  of  our  apprehensions  of  any  one,  or  all  of 
the  four  realities  under  consideration.  In  itself,  as  we  have  seen,  it  is 
just  as  possible  and  probable  that  the  objects  of  all  these  apprehensions 
exist  together,  as  that  any  one  of  them  exists  alone.  Nor  can  anything, 
as  we  have  further  seen,  be  shown  to  exist  intrinsically  in  any  one  of 
these  apprehensions,  anything,  in  any  form  or  degree,  disproving  or 
rendering  improbable  the  validity  of  such  apprehension  for  the  reality 
and  chaVaeter  of  its  object.  Nowhere,  in  the  wide  range  of  human 
thought,  can  a  solitary  principle  or  fact  be  adduced,  a  principle  or  fact  on 
the  authority  of  which  the  absolute  validity  of  our  apprehension  of  any 
one  of  those  realities  can  be  justly  irapeacl'ed, 

4.  The  validity  of  our  last  deduction  is  rendered  self-evident  by  what 
has  just  been  proven.  The  deduction  may  be  thus  stated :  any  form  of 
positive  proof  or  valid  evidence  in  favour  of  the  validity  of  any  one  or  all 
of  our  apprehensions  of  matter,  spirit,  space,  and  time,  for  the  reality  and 
character  of  their  objects,  verifies  for  such  apprehensions  a  place  in  the 
sphere  of  true  science.  Whenever  two  hypotheses  are  present,  one  of 
which  must  be  true  and  the  other  false,  the  total  absence  of  all  evidence 
in  favour  of  one,  and  positive  evidence  in  favour  of  the  other,  vindicates 
for  the  latter  a  elaim  in  our  regard  as  a  valid  principle  or  real  fact  of 
science.  The  same  holds  true  of  a  given  hypothesis,  against  which  no 
form  or  degree  of  disproof,  positive  evidence,  or  antecedent  probability 
can  be  adduced,  and  in  favour  of  which  real  proof  or  valid  evidence  does 
exist.  Such,  undeniably,  are  the  real  relations  of  science  to  each  of  the 
four  apprehensions  under  consideration.  Whether  such  forms  of  proof 
and  valid  evidence  in  their  favour  do  exist,  is  hereafter  to  be  shown. 
The  bearing  of  such  proof  or  evidence,  when  adduced,  is  undeniable.  To 
render  perfectly  distinct  the  true  state  of  the  case,  is  the  object  of  the 
present  presentation. 

These  Four  Realities  are   apprehended  by   Universal  Mind    as 

ACTUALLY    KnOWN     EeALITIES,    NOB    CAN     OUR  APPREHENSIONS  OF    ANTf 

one   of  them  be  changed,   modified,  or   displaced   from  human 
Thought. 

Our  next  position  in  regard  to  these  four  realities,  space,  time,  matter, 
and  spirit,  and  in  regard  to  our  apprehensions  of  the  same,  claims  very 


FOUR  REALITIES  IN  HUMAN  THOUGHT.  23 

sipecial  attention  on  account  of  its  fundamental  bearings  upon  our  present 
and  future  inquiries.  Our  position  is  this  :  these  four  realities,  all  in 
common,  are  apprehended  by  universal  mind  as  actually  known  realities, 
and  our  apprehensions  of  them,  in  all  their  essential  characteristics,  cau,  by 
no  possibility,  be  changed  or  modified  or  displaced  from  human  thought. 

We  think  of  space  as  the  place  of  substances,  of  time  as  the  place  of 
events,  and  of  space  and  time  as  the  necessary  condition  of  the  possibility 
of  the  existence  of  substances  and  the  occurrence  of  events.  We  then 
thiuk  of  body  as  existing  in  and  occupying  space,  and  consequently,  as 
possessed  of  real  extension  and  form.  We  finally  think  of  ourselves,  our 
minds,  as  real,  substantial  personalities  exercising  the  functions  of  thought, 
feeling,  and  willing.  Not  a  shadow  of  doubt  exists  in  our  minds  that 
all  these  objects  of  thought  are  realities  in  themselves,  and  that  we 
actually  apprehend  them  as  they  are.  In  other  words,  all  these  realities 
are  consciously  represented  in  universal  thought  as  absolutely  known 
realities.  Our  apprehensions  of  them  do  not  lie  under  the  eye  of  con 
sciousness  as  mere  assumptions,  opinions,  beliefs,  imaginings,  or  guesses, 
which  may  or  may  not  be  true,  but  as  forms  of  absolute  knowledge.  In 
the  interior  of  his  own  mind,  no  one  is  ever  conscious  of  himself  as 
merely  thinking,  supposing,  imagining,  or  guessing  what  he  thinks,  feels, 
and  wills,  but  as  absolutely  knowing  himself  as  the  subject  of  all  tiiese 
operations.  We  are  not  conscious  of  matter  as  an  object  of  doubtful 
belief,  imagining,  or  of  '  prudent  guessing,'  but  as  a  directly  perceived, 
and,  therefore,  known  reality.  The  certainty  of  the  self  and  the  not-self, 
as  given  in  universal  consciousness,  is  equal  and  absolute.  While  we 
thus  know  mind  and  matter  as  realities  in  themselves,  we  do  and  must 
know  with  the  same  absoluteness  that  they  do  and  must  exist  and  act  iu 
time  and  space.  Time  and  space,  therefore,  must  be  recognized  in  the 
consciousness,  not  only  as  actual,  but  as  known  realities.  No  one  can 
honestly  interpret  the  facts  of  his  own  consciousness  and  doubt  the  perfect 
validity  of  the  above  statements. 

This  leads  us  to  remark,  in  the  next  place,  that  in  all  essential  par- 
ticulars, and  in  certain  fundamental  respects,  our  apprehensions  of  each 
and  every  one  of  these  realities  can,  by  no  possibility,  be  displaced  from 
human  thought,  nor  can  they,  in  any  form,  be  changed  or  modified.  As 
far  as  our  apprehensions  of  space  and  time  are  concerned,  we  have  already 
seen  that  it  is  absolutely  impossible  for  us  to  conceive  of  the  non-existence 
of  these  realities,  or  of  their  being,  in  any  respects,  different  from  what 
we  apprehend  them  to  be.  In  the  absolute  validity  of  these  statements 
all  thinkers  of  all  schools  agree.  So  far,  then,  the  apprehensions  under 
consideration  must  be  admitted  to  have  an  immutably  fixed  place  and 
character  in  human  thought. 

A.n  equally  immutable  fixedness  of  place  and  character,  in  all  essential 


24  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

particulars,  is  possessed,  iii  universal  thought,  by  our  apprehensions  of 
mind  and  matter.  We  are  ever  immutably  conscious  of  ourselves,  and 
cannot  but  be  thus  conscious,  as  real,  substantial  personalities  possessing 
the  powers  and  exercising  the  functions  of  thought,  feeling,  and  v?illing. 
Xor  can  we  possibly  change  or  modify  our  apprehensions  of  ourselves  as 
such  personalities.  We  may  assuTue  and  affirm  matter  to  be  the  only 
reality,  and  that  thought,  feeling,  and  willing  are  nothing  but  phenomena 
of  this  one  substance.  Or  we  may  assume  and  affirm  that  neither  matter 
nor  spirit  exist  as  real  substances,  and  resolve  all  realities  into  pure 
thought.  In  the  very  midst  of  all  such  assumptions  and  reasonings,  and 
despite  of  all  such  deductions  to  the  contrary,  we  are,  and  cannot  but  be, 
present  to  ourselves  as  the  identical  personalities  above  defined.  While 
Messrs.  Hill,  Huxley,  Spencer  and  Emerson,  for  example,  stand  out  to 
themselves,  in  their  systems,  as  demonstrated  nonentities,  they  are,  like 
all  the  rest  of  the  race,  ever  present  to  themselves  as  real  substantial 
personalities — yes,  more  than  this,  as  real  substantial  thinkers  of  great 
eminence.  They  have  never  for  a  moment  doubted,  or  can  doubt,  of 
themselA'es,  or  changed  or  modified  their  apprehensions  of  themselves 
in  the  particulars  above  stated.  Conscious  thinkers  attempting  to 
demonstrate  to  themselves,  and  to  all  mankind,  that  they  themselves  do 
not  think  at  all  1  This  is  the  scientific  farce  which  such  thinkers  are 
perpetually  acting  and  re-acting  before  themselves  and  before  the  world, 
and  all  this  with  the  eye  of  their  own  consciousness  ever  fixed  with 
direct,  distinct,  and  clear  vision  upon  their  own  substantial  selves  as  stul- 
tifying themselves.  We  can  no  more,  in  the  interior  of  our  own  minds, 
doubt  the  absolute  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  ourselves,  or  change  or 
modify  our  apprehensions  of  ourselves,  that  is,  in  the  fundamental  par- 
ticulars under  consideration,  than  we  can  doubt  the  validity  of  our 
knowledge  of  a  circle  or  square,  or  change  or  modify  our  apprehensions 
of  these  figures.  In  our  interior  apprehensions  and  convictions,  we  no 
more,  and  can  no  more,  confound  our  conscious  selves  with  material 
existences  around  us,  our  minds  with  our  bodies,  or  our  souls  with  our 
brains,  than  we  do  or  can  confound  a  circle  with  a  triangle.  In  all  minds 
in  common,  all  reasoniugs  and  affirmed  demonstrations  to  the  contrary 
notwithstanding — in  all  minds  in  common,  we  say,  spirit  and  matter  are 
as  distinctly  separated  and  distinguished,  the  one  from  the  other,  as  are 
the  two  figures  above  named  from  each  other. 

The  same  remarks  are  equally  applicable  to  our  apprehensions  of  matter. 
All  men  are  distinctly  and  absolutely  conscious  of  a  direct  and  immediate 
perception  of  this  substance  as  a  reality  exterior  and  objective  to  the 
mind,  and  as  possessed,  among  others,  of  the  essential  qualities  of  exten- 
sion and  form.  This  apprehension  which  we  have  of  this  substance, 
together  with   our  absolute*  conviction  of  its  real  existence  as  such  a 


FOUR  KEALITIES  IN  HUMAN  THOUGHT.  25 

substance,  can  no  more  be  displaced  from  human  thought,  or  in  any 
sense  or  form  be  changed  or  modified,  than  can  our  apprehensions  and 
convictions  in  respect  to  any  mathematical  figures  whatsoever.  In  the 
absolute  validity  of  these  statements,  all  men,  philosophers  among  the  rest, 
perfectly  agree.  Kant,  for  example,  while  he  denies  absolutely  the  validity 
of  all  our  apprehensions  of  both  matter  and  spirit,  aflSrms,  as  absolutely, 
that  it  is  impossible  for  reasoning  or  philosophy  to  displace  these  appre- 
hensions from  human  thought,  to  change  or  modify  the  same,  or  to  banish 
the  conviction  which  is  omnipresent  in  universal  mind,  that  these  appre- 
hensions have  absolute  validity  for  the  reality  and  character  of  their 
objects.     The  reason  which  he  assigns  for  this  undeniable  fact,  is  this  : 

*  We  have  to  do  with  natural  and  unavoidable  illusion,  which  reposes  upon 
subjective  principles.'  This  'natural  and  unavoidable  illusion,'  he  adds, 
'is  not  one  in  which,  for  instance,  a  blockhead,  from  want  of  knowledge, 
involves  himself,  or  which  a  trickster  has  artfully  imagined  in  order  to 
torment  reasonable  people,  but  one  which  irresistibly  adheres  to  human 
reason,  and  even  when  we  have  discovered  its  delusion,  still  will  not  cease 
to  play  tricks  upon  reason  and  to  push  it  continually  into  momentary 
errors,  which  always  require  to  be  corrected.'  We  have,  undeniably,  in 
all  such  cases,  not  reason  through  laws  '  irresistibly  inhering '  in  itself, 
imposing  upon  itself  '  natural  and  unavoidable  illusion,'  and  as  necessarily 
'  playing  tricks '  upon  itself.  We  have,  on  the  other  hand,  reason  itself, 
through  its  inherent  and  immutable  laws,  correcting  the  illusions  and 
tricks  which  false  science  is  endeavouring  to  impose,  as  truths  of  real 
science,  upon  the  universal  human  intelligence.  In  accordance  with  the 
teaching  of  Kant,  Coleridge  affirms  that  our  apprehension  of  external 
material  substances,  together  with  our  absolute  belief  of  the  validity  of 
such  apprehension,  is  '  innate,  indeed,  and  con-natural,'  that  it  '  remains 
proof  against  all  attempts  to  remove  it  by  grounds  or  arguments,'  and 
'  lays  claim  to  immediate  certainty  as  a  position  at  once  indemonstrable 
and  irresistible.'  Yet  he  affirms  this  belief  to  be  '  nothing  but  a  prejudice, 
innate,  indeed,  and  con-natural,  but  still  a  prejudice.'  No  philosopher  of 
any  age  or  school,  a  philosopher  who  denies  the  validity  of  our  knowledge 
of  the  nature  of  matter  especially,  ever  did  deny,  or  will  deny,  the  above 
statements  of  Kant  and  Coleridge.  All  agree  that  our  apprehensions  and 
beliefs  in  respect  to  the  essential  characteristics  of  spirit  and  matter  are 

*  natural  and  unavoidable,'  '  innate,  indeed,  and  con-natural,'  that  they 
cannot  be  eradicated,  changed,  or  modified,  but  '  remain  proof  against  all 
attempts  to  remove  them  by  grounds  or  argument,'  and  '  lay  claim  to 
immediate  certainty  as  a  position  at  once  indemonstrable  and  irresistible.' 
'  This  faith,'  that  is,  this  natural,  unavoidable,  irresistible,  and  immovable 
conviction,  '  the  philosopher,'  that  is,  philosopher  of  his  school,  Mr. 
Coleridge  tells  us,  '  compels  himself  to  treat  as  nothing  but  a  prejudice/ 


26  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY, 

an  'illusion,'  as  Kant  calls  it.  We  fully  confess  that  we  regard  an 
assumption  forced  upon  the  mind  by  an  act  of  will,  and  that  in  opposition 
to  *  a  natural  and  immovable  intellectual  intuition,'  which  'remains  proof 
against  all  attempts  to  remove  it  by  grounds  or  arguments ' — we  regard 
such  a  forced  assumption,  we  say,  •  as  nothing  but  a  prejudice,'  *  an 
illusion  '  of  false  science.  On  the  other  hand,  we  regard  an  intuitive 
conviction,  which  no  system  of  philosophy  can  change,  modify,  or  displace 
from  human  thought,  as  itself  a  truth  of  real  science.  The  fact  is  un- 
deniable, that  all  these  realities  are  distinctly  revealed  in  the  universal 
consciousness  as  objects  of  valid  knowledge,  that  in  all  essential  particulars 
our  apprehensions  of  these  realities  can,  by  no  possibility,  be  changed,  or 
modified,  or  displaced  from  human  thought,  and  that  the  validity  of  these 
apprehensions  can  be  impeached,  not  by  any  principle  or  fact  given  as 
valid,  or  real,  by  the  intelligence,  but  by  a  mere  assumption  forced  into 
the  sphere  of  thought  by  a  lawless  act  of  will,  an  assumption  in  which 
we  compel  ourselves  to  '■treat  as  nothing  but  a  prejudice,'  an  'illusion,' 
apprehensions  which  the  intelligence  does  and  must  regard  as  forms  of 
absolute  knowledge.  We  shall  have  occasion  to  speak,  more  at  length, 
upon  this  great  central  fact  hereafter. 

Our  Apprehensions  of  these  Realities  have  all  the  Fundamental 
Charaotehistics  op  JForms  of  Valid  Knowledge,  Chabaotbristios 
WHICH  TRUE  Science  must  and  will  Acknowledge. 
We  now  advance  to  our  great  central  and  final  position  in  regard  to  these 
realities,  and  to  our  apprehensions  of  the  same.     These  apprehensions,  we 
remark,  possess  all  actual  and  conceivable  characteristics  of  real  absolute 
knowledge,  and  hence,  true  science  must,  and  will,  accept  of  the  objects 
of  these  apprehensions,  as  realities  in  themselves,  and  as  being  in  them- 
selves what  we  apprehend  them  to  be.     The  validity  of  this  position  we 
argue  from  the  following  considerations  : 

/.  ThA  Falidity  of  these  Apprehensions  Cannot  he  Disproved^  or  Rendered 

Doubtful. 
We  affirm,  then,  in  the  first  place,  that  by  no  possibility  can  the 
validity  of  these  apprehensions  be  disproved  or  rendered,  in  the  remotest 
degree,  doubtful  To  accomplish  such  a  result,  we  must  find  forms  of 
knowledge  of  the  validity  of  which  we  are,  and  must  be,  more  certain  than  we 
are  of  that  of  these  appreliensions,  forms  which  if  true,  the  latter  must  be 
false.  The  only  conceivable  conditions  on  which  such  incompatible 
forms  of  knowledge  can  be  discovered  and  adduced  are  the  following : 
1.  An  attempt  may  be  made  to  show  that  such  forms  of  knowledge  are 
naturally  impossible.  2,  Or  that  facts  exist  outside  of  the  sphere  of  these 
apprehensions,  facts  incompatible  with  the  validity  of  said  apprehensions. 


FOUR  REALITIES  IN  HUMAN  THOUGHT.  27 

3.  Or  such  facts  may  be  sought  in  the  relations  of  these  apprehensions  to 
one  another,  4.  Or,  finally,  these  facts  may  be  sought  in  what  is  in- 
trinsic in  one  or  more  of  the  apprehensions  themselves.  We  propose  to 
consider,  in  the  order  designated,  these,  the  only  conceivable  forms  of 
disproof  that  can  be  adduced. 

1,  Svxh  Forms  of  Krumledge  not  Naturally  Impossible. 

Valid  knowledge,  in  all  these  forms,  cannot  be  shown  to  be  impossible 
in  itself.  Nov  is  there  any  form  or  degree  of  antecedent  probability 
against  the  actual  existence  of  such  knowledge  Knowledge  in  its  exterior 
is  just  as  conceivably  possible  as  in  its  interior  form.  If  we  should,  as 
philosophers  of  a  certain  school  do,  deny  the  possibility  of  knowledge  in 
any  one  form,  because  we  cannot  show  how  such  knowledge  is  possible, 
we  should  be  compelled  to  deny  its  possibility  in  every  form.  Suppose 
the  transcendental  philosopher  were  required  to  show  us  how  and  why 
thought  becomes  its  own  object,  and  knows  itself  ?  He  assures  us,  that  in 
all  acts  of  external  perception,  an  exclusively  mental  state  is  made  to 
appear  to  the  mind,  as  the  exclusive  quality  of  an  object  exterior  to,  and 
separate  from,  the  perceiving  subject.  He  would  find  the  how  and  the 
why  quite  as  inexplicable  in  all  such  cases,  and  indeed  in  all  cases,  as  in 
that  of  actual  external  perception.  The  real  question  for  science  to  deter- 
mine is  not  how  and  why  we  know  in  any  case,  but  what  we  do  know.  No 
one  can  affirm  d  priori  that  God  does  not  possess  actual  knowledge  in  all 
these  forms,  and  that  He  cannot  create  an  intelligence  capacitated  for  such 
knowledge.  We  cannot,  therefore,  affirm  d>  priori,  that  the  human  intel- 
ligence is  not  such  a  power.  If  such  knowledge  is  not,  and  it  undeniably 
is  not,  self-evidently  impossible  in  itself,  then  there  is,  and  can  be,  no 
antecedent  probability  against  the  actual  existence  of  such  a  power;  and 
the  question  whether  the  human  intelligence  is,  or  is  not,  such  a  power,  is 
simply  a  question  of  fact,  and  is  to  be  determined,  like  all  other  questions 
pertaining  to  mental  facts,  by  an  appeal  to  consciousness.  The  question 
for  science  is  simply  this  :  Are  we,  in  fact,  conscious  of  knowing  our 
own  mental  states,  and  also  *  things  without  us,'  and  also  time  and  space 
as  necessary  existences,  and  as  necessarily  implied  by  what  we  perceive  ? 
If  such  is  found  to  be  the  real  state  of  our  consciousness,  science  demands 
that  we  shall  recognize  the  human  intelligence  as  such  a  power. 

2.  Facts  in  Disproof  cannot  he  found  outside  of  the  Sphere  of  these 
Apprehensions. 

We  may  go  wholly  out  of  the  spheres  of  all  thexe  apprehensions,  and  seek 
for  real  facts  there,  facts  of  the  reality  of  which  we  are,  and  must 
be,  more  assured  than  we  are  of  the  existence  of  the  realities  under  con- 
sideration, facts  which  absolutely  imply  the  invalidity  of  said  appreben- 


2S  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

sions.  Now,  outside  of  this  sphere,  undeniably  no  facts  exist  of  which 
we  can  form  the  remotest  apprehension.  As  far  as  human  thought  can 
reach,  or  divine,  we  are  here  in  the  region  of  absolute  nonentity,  in  the 
midst  of  total  vacancy,  where  nothing  is  revealed  as  the  basis  of  any 
deductions  whatever.  In  the  midst  of  this  *  palpable  obscure,'  nothing, 
surely,  is,  or  can  be  revealed,  to  invalidate  our  knowledge  of  space,  time, 
matter,  or  spirit. 

3.  Facts  ill  Disjproof  canmt  he  found  in  the  Relations  of  these  App'ehemions 

to  one  another. 

Or,  we  may  seek  for  the  form  of  knowledge  after  which  we  are 
inquiring,  in  the  relations  to  one  another  of  our  apprehensions  of  the 
four  realities  under  considevaiion,  and  may  look  for  the  object  we  seek 
in  that  direction.  But  here  our  researches  will  be  found  to  be  as  vain 
and  fruitless  as  before.  Each  of  these  apprehensions,  as  we  have  seen, 
sustains  the  relation  of  absolute  compatibility  with  every  other.  There 
is  the  utter  absence  of  all  appearance  of  contradiction  between  our  ideas 
of  space  and  time,  and  between  those  and  our  apprehensions  of  matter  and 
spirit.  Nor  is  there  a  solitary  element  in  our  apprehensions  of  either  of 
these  substances,  in  the  remotest  degree,  incompatible  with,  or  contra- 
dictory to,  any  element  existing  in  the  other.  No  one  professes  to  find 
here  anything  whatever  to  disprove  or  render  improvable  the  validity  of 
our  knowledge  of  any  one  of  these  realities. 

4.  Such  Facts  cannot  he  found  in  what  is  Intrinsic  in  any  of  these 
Apprehensions. 

Or,  finally,  we  may  look  for  the  object  we  seek  in  the  only  remaining 
direction,  in  what  is  intrinsic  in  one  or  more  of  these  apprehensions  them- 
selves. We  have  already  anticipated  nearly,  or  quite,  all  that  can  be 
found  here  bearing  upon  our  inquiries.  Ever  since  the  days  of  Zeno,  of 
the  Italic  School  of  Greece,  philosophers  of  the  same  school  have  affirmed 
that  none  of  our  world-conceptions,  or  necessary  ideas,  can  be  valid  for 
the  reality  and  character  of  their  objects,  because  all  such  apprehensions 
contain,  within  themselves,  the  elements  of  absolute  self-contradictions. 
Here  the  following  fundamental  questions  at  once  present  themselves. 
Are  we,  or  can  we  be,  as  absolutely  assured,  or  more  so,  of  the  actual 
existence  of  such  contradictions,  than  we  are  of  the  reality  of  time  and 
space,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  our  personal  existence  as  exercising  the 
functions  of  thought,  feeling  and  willing,  and  of  matter,  as  having  real 
extension  and  form,  on  the  other  ?  Can  I  be  so  absolutely  certain  that 
these  philosophers  are  right,  as  I  am  that  I  am  now  thinking  upon  the 
subject  ?  Can  I  be  so  certain  of  the  validity  of  their  argument  to  prove 
the  existence  of  these  contradictions,  as  I  am  that  I  think,  I  feel,  and  I 


FOUR  REALITIES  IN  HUMAN  THOUGHT.  29 

will,  and  that  matter  is  immediately  and  directly  before  me,  as  possessed 
of  tlie  qualities  of  real  extension  and  form  ?  These  philosophers  them- 
selves admit  and  affirm  that  in  their  own  minds  the  conviction  of  the 
absolute  validity  of  these  conceptions  and  ideas  '  remains  proof  agaiust  all 
their  attempt  to  remove  it,  by  the  grounds  and  arguments '  which  they 
themselves  adduce.  Why,  then,  should  we  admit  the  validity  of  such 
grounds  and  arguments  %  We  may  ask,  further,  whether  the  same,  or 
precisely  similar,  perplexities  and  seeming  contradictions  do  not  connect 
themselves  with  absolutely  known  truths  ]  Something  is  real.  This  is 
undeniable,  and  will  be  admitted  by  the  class  of  philosophers  under  con- 
sideration. Against  the  validity  of  this  undeniable  proposition,  there 
exist,  in  all  their  force,  all  the  difficulties,  perplexities,  and  arguments, 
ever  adduced  against  the  validity  of  all  our  world-conceptions,  and  neces- 
sary ideas.  If  anything,  be  it  spirit  or  matter,  exists,  it  must  exist 
somewhere  and  in  some  time,  that  is,  in  time  and  space.  This  implies 
the  real  existence,  as  realities  in  themselves,  of  time  and  space,  and  that 
in  absolute  accordance  with  our  apprehensions  of  these  realities.  But 
time  and  space,  these  philosophers  assure  us,  are  not,  and  cannot  be,  the 
realities  which  we  apprehend  them  to  be,  because  such  apprehensions 
have  in  them  the  elements  of  absolute  contradiction.  Now,  reasoning 
which,  if  its  validity  be  admitted,  would  prove  absolutely  that  no  forui 
of  being  does,  or  can  exist,  can  have  validity  in  no  sphere  of  human, 
thought,  much  less  against  our  world-conceptions  and  necessary  ideas. 

But  we  are  fully  able  to  see  through  and  expose  the  sophistry  and  false 
deductions  of  these  philosophers.  All  the  contradictions  which  they 
adduce  are,  as  we  have  already  seen,  undeniably  found  to  exist  exclu- 
sively, not  in  our  world-conceptions,  which  actually  exist  in  human 
thought,  but  \n  fictions  manufactured  for  the  occasion,  and  substituted  for 
realities  as  they  are.  A  compound  constituted  of  compounds,  and  repre- 
sented as  such  in  thought,  is  self-contradictory,  and  cannot  be  real.  Such, 
it  is  affirmed,  are  all  our  world-conceptions.  On  the  other  hand,  the  con- 
ception of  a  compound  constituted  of  absolute  simples  is  an  idea  void  of 
all  appearance  even  of  self-contradiction.  Such,  as  we  have  seen,  are, 
without  exception,  all  our  world- conceptions,  as  they  actuall}-^  exist  in 
human  thought  Taken  as  they  actually  exist  in  the  universal  conscious- 
ness, no  element  can  be  found  in  any  of  these  apprehensions — no  element 
in  the  remotest  degree  incompatible  with  any  other  found  in  the  same 
conception. 

The  argument  of  Mr.  Spencer  to  prove  that  our  ideas  of  space  and  time 
are  self-contradictory,  and  that  space  and  time  cannot,  therefore,  be  in 
themselves  the  realities  which  we  apprehend  them  to  be — his  argument 
on  this  point,  we  say,  is  based  wholly,  in  fact  and  form,  upon  the  assump- 
tion that^  if  they  exist  at  all,  space  and  time  both  must  exist  as  '  entities 


30  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

or  the  attributes  of  entities,'  as  '  things  having  or  not  having  attributes,' 
facts  utterly  incompatible  with  our  actual  apprehensions  of  these  realities. 
Here,  again,  we  undeniably  have  a  fiction  substituted  for  a  reality,  and 
imposed  upon  the  mind  as  that  reality.  Space  and  time  are  actually  ap- 
prehended as  the  places  of  *  entities  and  their  attributes,'  and  of  '  things 
having  attributes,'  and  not  as  entities,  things,  or  attributes  of  entities  ; 
and  nowhere  but  in  the  brain  of  a  bewildered  philosopher  are  our  ideas 
of  these  realities  confounded  with  our  conceptions  of  *  entities '  and 
•  things  '  and  '  their  attributes,'  substances  and  attributes  existing  in  time 
and  space.  If  by  the  terms  'entity'  and  'thing'  Mr.  Spencer  means 
not  substances,  but  realities,  then  his  argument  has  no  other  characteristic 
than  that  of  senseless  tautology.  It  stands  thus  :  *  If  space  and  time  are 
real  substances  in  themselves — that  is,  realities — they  must  be  realities  or 
the  attributes  of  realities.'  If  by  these  terms  he  means  sub-dances  or  their 
attributes,  he  has  undeniably  confounded  the  implied  with  that  by  which 
the  former  is  implied,  and  stands  openly  convicted  of  a  gross  sophism. 
Neither  substances  nor  their  attributes  are  or  can  be  time  or  space,  but, 
as  the  immutable  couditiou  of  the  possibility  of  their  existence,  imply 
time  and  space.  Time  and  space,  as  actually  represented  in  human 
thought,  therefore,  are  not  substances  or  entities,  but  yet  realities  in  them- 
selves, and  such  realities  as  we  apprehend  them  to  be;  and  our  apprehen- 
sions of  them  have  not,  as  Mr.  Spencer  affirms,  a  '  purely  relative,'  but  an 
absolute  validity. 

In  his  chapter  on  *  Ultimate  Scientific  Ideas,'  Mr.  Spencer  has  fully 
demonstrated  the  validity  of  our  ideas  of  these  realities.  Against  the 
monstrous  absurdity  of  Kant,  that  space  and  time  are  nothing  in  them- 
selves but  ^d,p'iori  laws  or  conditions  of  the  conscious  mind,'  Mr.  Spencer 
urges  the  following  demonstrative  argument :  '  If  space  and  time,  present 
to  our  minds,  belong  to  the  ego,  then  of  necessity  they  do  not  belong  to 
the  non-ego.  Now,  it  is  absolutely  impossible  to  think  this'  (that  thej'^ 
do  belong  to  the  ego).  Again,  '  The  direct  testimony  of  consciousness  is, 
that  time  and  space  are  not  within  but  without  the  mind,  and  so  abso- 
lutely independent  of  it  that  they  cannot  be  conceived  to  become  non- 
existent, even  were  the  mind  to  become  non-existent.'  No  reasonable 
man  will  or  can  question  the  demonstrative  validity  of  this  argument. 
If  the  'direct  testimony  of  consciousness  '  is  to  be  admitted  as  of  absolute 
validity  in  one,  it  must  be  in  all  cases.  This  is  self-evident.  *  Now,  the 
direct  testimony  of  consciousness  is'  not  only  that  'space  and  time  cannot 
be  conceived  to  become  non-existent,  even  were  the  mind  to  become  non- 
existent,' but  that,  as  realities,  they  cannot  be  conceived  to  be,  in  any 
respects  whatever,  different  from  what  we  apprehend  them  to  be.  The 
testimony  of  consciousness  is  just  as  absolute  in  one  case  as  in  the  other. 
Our  apprehensions  of  space  and  time,  therefore,  have  in  all  respects  abso- 


FOUR  REALITIES  IN  HUMAN  THOUGHT.  31 

lute  validity  for  the  reality  and  character  of  their  objects.  From  all  that 
has  been  shown  above,  the  deduction  is  absolute  that  the  invalidity  of  our 
apprehensions  of  time  and  space,  matter  and  spirit,  cannot  by  any  pos- 
sibility be  disproved  or  rendered  in  the  remotest  degree  improbable. 

//.  Ovr  Apprehensions  of  Space,  Time,  Maiter,  and  Spirit  are,  in  all  their 
essential  elements  and  characteristics,  distinct,  separate,  and  dissimilar  from 
all  Assumptions,  Beliefs,  and  Opinions,  which  may  or  may  not  be  true. 

Our  apprehensions  of  the  four  realities  under  consideration  are,  we 
remark  in  the  next  place,  in  all  their  essential  elements  and  characteristics, 
most  obviously  distinguishable  from  and  dissimilar  to  all  forms  of  assump- 
tions, opinions,  beliefs,  and  conjectures,  which  may  or  may  not  be  true. 
Phenomena  of  the  latter  class,  all  in  common,  as  we  have  seen,  have  these 
fixed  characteristics,  that  they  are  subject  to  change,  modification,  and  dis- 
placement from  human  thought  and  regard.  Our  apprehensions  of  the 
realities  under  consideration,  as  we  have  also  seen,  have,  all  in  common, 
characteristics  of  a  distinct  and  opposite  nature — characteristics  equally 
and  absolutely  fixed  and  immutable — the  utter  impossibility  of  being 
changed,  modified,  or  displaced  from  human  thought  and  regard. 

The  elements  also  which  enter  into  and  constitute  our  fundamental 
apprehensions  of  space  and  time,  matter  and  spirit,  have  all  the  charac- 
teristics of  original  intuition ,  while  assumptions,  beliefs,  and  opinions 
have  all  the  characteristics  of  secondary  operations — operations  in  which 
acts  of  the  intellect  are,  to  s  greater  or  less  degree,  modified  or  determined 
by  impulsions  of  the  sensibility,  or  volitions  of  the  will.  How  often  do 
men  think  so-and-so  because  they  desire  or  determine  thus  to  think ! 
Thus,  consequently,  we  have  assumptions,  beliefs,  opinions,  conjectures, 
and  guesses — that  is,  ever-changing  phenomena,  in  which  error  and  truth 
are  lawlessly  intermingled.  la  original  intuition,  which  precedes  such 
impulsions  and  determinations,  we  have  pure  intellection — the  direct,  im- 
mediate, and  open  vision  of  truth  itself.  Assumptions,  beliefs,  and 
opinions  consequently  come  and  go,  appear  and  disappear,  and  take  on  an 
endless  diversity  of  modifications.  Original  intuition,  however,  never 
changes  By  every  law  and  principle  of  correct  classification  our  funda- 
mental apprehensions  of  space  and  time,  and  spirit  and  matter,  take 
rank,  not  among  changeable  and  ever-changing  assumptions,  opinions,  or 
beliefs,  but  among  the  immutable  facts  of  original  intuition.  In  the  uni- 
versal consciousness  the  essential  elements  of  all  these  apprehensions  are 
distinctly  recognized,  not  as  belonging  to  the  former  class  of  phenomena, 
but  as  facts  of  original  intuition.  We  regard  ourselves  as  self-conscious 
personalities,  exercising  the  functions  of  thought,  feeling,  and  will,  and 
matter  as  an  exterior  substance  having  extension  and  form,  not  because  we 
desire  or  choose  thus  to  regard  ourselves  or  it,  but  because  we  are  abso- 


32  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

lutely  conscious  of  a  direct  and  immediate  intuition  of  ourselves  as  such 
personalities,  and  of  it  as  such  a  substance.  By  conscious  intuition  simi- 
larly direct  and  immediate  we  recognize  space  and  time  as  tlie  places  of 
substances  and  events,  realities  implied  by  what  we  perceive,  and  the 
conscious  objects  of  necessary  ideas.  In  all  systems  of  true  science,  there- 
fore, these  essential  apprehensions  will  be  distinguished  and  separated 
from  all  the  variable  and  ever-varying  phenomena  above  designated,  and 
ranked  among  the  adamantine  facts  of  original  intuition. 

///.  These  Apprehensions  have  all  Possible  Positive  Characteristics  of  Real 
Absolute  Knowledge. 

Having  shown  incontrovertibly  that  the  validity  of  these  apprehensions 
can,  by  no  possibility,  be  disproved,  or,  in  any  form  or  degree,  rendered 
improbable,  and  having  as  incontestably  proven  that  they  are  to  be  dis- 
tinguished and  separated  from  all  forms  of  assumption,  opinion,  and  belief, 
which  may  or  may  not  be  true,  we  now  proceed  to  demonstrate,  by  the 
most  rigid  application  of  scientific  criteria,  that  these  apprehensions 
possess,  in  their  most  perfect  forms,  all  conceivable  characteristics  of  real 
knowledge.  The  facts  already  established  evince  this  beyond  all  reason- 
able doubt,  if  they  do  not  render  it  demonstrably  evident.  Apprehen- 
sions existing  in  all  minds  in  common  ;  apprehensions  which  can  by  no 
possibility  be  in  the  remotest  degree  changed,  modified,  or  displaced  from 
human  thought  and  regard,  and  which,  by  fundamental  characteristics, 
stand  utterly  distinguished  and  separated  from  all  forms  of  assumptions, 
opinions,  and  beliefs  which  are  continually  subject  to  change  and  modifi- 
cation, and  are  often  wholly  displaced  from  human  thought  and  regard — 
if  such  facts  do  not  verify  apprehensions  as  forms  of  actual  knowledge, 
we  can  have  no  evidence  that  real  knowledge,  in  any  form,  has  a  dwelling- 
place  in  the  mind  of  man.  Let  us,  however,  enter  at  once  upon  a  careful 
scrutiny  of  these  apprehensions  in  the  light  of  scientific  tests,  or  criteria 
which  absolutely  verify,  as  such,  all  forms  of  real  knowledge — knowledge 
which  has  place  in  systems  of  true  science. 

Necessary  Ideas. 

We  commence  with  our  necessary  ideas  of  space  and  time.  "We  have 
precisely  the  same  evidence  that  these  objects  are  realities  in  themselves, 
and,  in  all  respects,  such  realities  as  we  apprehend  them  to  be,  that  wo 
have  of  the  truth  of  the  axioms.  Things  equal  to  the  same  things  are  equal 
to  one  another,  and  It  is  impossible  for  the  same  thing,  at  the  same  time, 
to  exist,  and  not  to  exist.  Why  do  we,  and  all  men,  hold  these  proposi- 
tions to  be  true  1  But  one  answer  can  be  given.  It  is  absolutely  im- 
possible for  us  even  to  conceive  them  not  to  be  true.  We,  therefore, 
rightly  affirm  that  we  know  absolutely  that  they  are  and  must  be  true. 


FOUR  REALITIES  IN  HUMAN  THOUGHT.  33 

The  validity  of  such  forms  of  knowledge  cannot  be  doubted.  For  the 
same  identical  reasons  for  which  we  affirm  that  these  axioms  are  and  must 
be  true,  we  affirm  space  and  time  to  be  realities  in  themselves,  and  in  all 
respects  such  realities  as  we  apprehend  them  to  be.  We  can  no  more 
conceive  that  space  and  time  are  not  realities  in  themselves,  and  the 
identical  realities  which  we  conceive  them  to  be,  than  we  can  conceive 
that  things  equal  to  the  same  things  are  not  equal  to  one  another,  and 
that  it  is  possible  for  the  same  thing,  at  the  same  moment,  to  exist  and 
not  exist.  That  our  apprehensions  of  space  and  time  are,  in  the  sense 
explained,  necessary  ideas,  all  thinkers  of  all  schools  admit  and  affirm. 
•  We  can  never,'  says  Kant,  *  make  to  ourselves  a  representation  of  this, 
that  there  is  no  space,  although  we  may  very  readily  think '  (conceive) 
'that  no  objects  therein  are  to  be  met  with.'  *  Time,'  he  says,  *is  a  neces- 
sary representation.'  'Space  and  time,'  says  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  as 
already  cited,  '  cannot  be  conceived  to  become  non-existent.'  No  thinker 
was  ever  known  to  deny  the  validity  of  the  expositions  here  given.  We 
must  hold,  then,  that  time  and  space  are  realities  in  themselves,  or  deny 
the  validity  of  all  the  principles  and  axioms  of  all  the  sciences,  the  mathe- 
matics among  the  rest. 

Continffent  Ideas — Matter  and  Spirit 

Let  us  now  turn  our  attention  to  contingent  ideas,  and  consider  the 
relations  of  said  ideas  to  their  objects,  matter  and  spirit.  These  ideas,  we 
affirm,  as  seen  in  the  clearest  light  of  all  absolute  scientific  criteria  appli- 
cable to  such  cases,  have  all  the  characteristics  of  real,  valid  knowledge. 
This  we  affirm  from  the  following  considerations  : 

1.  There  are  no  other  forms  of  knowledge  which  have,  or  can  have,  in 
them  the  elements  of  more  absolute  certainty.  We  are  just  as  distinctly 
and  absolutely  conscious  of  knowing  these  realities  as  they  are,  as  we  are 
of  knowing  time  and  space  as  they  are  in  themselves.  The  conscious 
certainty  of  knowledge  is  just  as  absolute  in  one  case  as  in  the  other. 
This  certainty  also  admits  of  no  degrees.  Whenever  we  think  of  time 
and  space,  we  are  at  one  time  just  as  certain  that  we  hnow  them,  as  we 
are  at  any  other.  With  the  same  changeless  certainty,  we  hnow  ourselves 
as  personalities  exercising  the  functions  of  thought,  feeling,  and  willing 
and  matter  as  directly  and  immediately  before  us,  and  as  possessed  of 
extension  and  form  ;  we  thus  know  ourselves  and  matter,  we  say,  when- 
ever we  think  of  ourselves  and  it.  This  omnipresent  and  changeless  con- 
scious certainty  is  one  of  the  fixed  and  immutable  tests  of  real  knowledge. 
Some  individuals  do,  indeed,  deny  the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  these 
realities.  The  same  individuals,  however,  all  in  common,  deny  the 
validity  of  knowledge,  even  in  its  necessary  forms.  On  one  condition 
only  can  the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  either  of  these  realities  be 

8 


34  ^  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

denied,  to  wit,  a  universal  and  absolute  impeachment  of  the  intelligence 
itself,  as  a  faculty  of  knowledge  in  every  form. 

2.  Another  infallible,  scientific  criterion  of  valid  knowledge  is  the 
direct,  immediate,  and  absolute  testimony  of  the  universal  consciousness. 
If  we  apply  this  test  with  the  utmost  scrutiny,  we  shall  be  compelled  to 
rank  our  fundamental  apprehensions  of  matter  and  spirit  among  the  most 
clearly  marked  forms  of  real  knowledge.  Of  nothing  can  we  be  more 
distinctly  and  absolutely  conscious  than  we  are  of  our  personal  selves,  as 
thinking,  feeling,  and  willing,  and  absolutely  perceiving,  or  knowing, 
matter  as  an  exterior  reality  having  real  extension  and  form.  If  we  think 
of  the  qualities  of  matter,  we  find  most  clearly  and  definitely  marked  forms 
of  real  knowledge.  We  need  to  refer  here  but  to  two  classes  of  qualities, 
the  primary  and  the  secondary.  The  latter  are,  in  universal  mind,  recog- 
nized as  the  unknown  causes  of  known  states  of  the  sensibility,  sensations, 
of  which  we  are  directly  and  absolutely  conscious.  The  primary  qualities, 
on  the  other  hand,  are  as  universally  recognized  as  the  equally  known 
objects  of  known  states  of  the  intelligence,  external  perception,  of  which 
we  are  as  directly  and  absolutely  conscious.  The  secondary  quality  is 
given  in  consciousness  as  felt,  and,  therefore,  inferred.  The  primary,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  given  as  directly  and  immediately  perceived,  and, 
therefore,  affirmed.  We  are  conscious  of  a  medium,  sensation,  between 
us  and  the  unknown  cause  of  the  sensation.  We  are  as  absolutely 
conscious  of  direct  and  immediate  knowledge  in  respect  to  the  known 
object  of  perception.  There  is  no  more  obvious  and  dangerous  error  in 
science  than  the  hypothesis  that  all  our  knowledge  of  matter  is  indirect 
and  mediate,  through  sensation.  We  must  affirm,  then,  that  our  know- 
ledge of  mind,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  matter,  on  the  other,  is,  in  its 
fundamental  characteristics,  of  absolute  validity  for  the  reality  and 
character  of  its  object,  or,  in  the  language  of  Sir  William  Hamilton, 
*  affirm  consciousness  to  be  a  liar  from  the  beginning.' 

3.  The  fundamental  elements  which  constitute  our  apprehensions  of 
these  substances  have  all  the  characteristics  of  original  and  direct  intuition. 
We  are  absolutely  conscious  that  our  present  fundamental  perceptions, 
external  and  internal,  are  intuitional,  and  the  apprehensions  thus  originated 
have  all  the  characteristics  of  perfect  immutability.  This  evinces,  un- 
deniably, that  the  elements  constituting  these  apprehensions  have,  from 
the  beginning,  been  of  the  same  character.  On  no  other  hypothesis,  also, 
can  we  account  for  the  origin  of  these  apprehensions.  We  apprehend  our- 
selves as  self-conscious  personalities,  exercising  the  functions  of  thought, 
feeling  and  willing.  But  one  account  can  be  given  of  the  origin  ot 
such  an  apprehension — the  consciousness  of  self  as  the  subject  of  such 
phenomena.  The  immutable  condition  of  the  origination  in  the  intel- 
ligence, of  the  apprehension  of  an  exterior  object,  having  extension  and 


FOUR  REALITIES  IN  HUMAN  THOUGHT.  -KX, 

form,  is  the  actual  conscious  perception  of  such  object  There  is  nothing 
in  mere  sensation,  an  exclusively  sensitive  and  subjective  state — a  state 
utterly  void  of  extension,  form,  colour,  solidity,  or  attraction,  even  to 
suggest  an  exterior  object,  much  less  one  having  these  specific  qualities. 
How  could  a  mere  subjective  state,  void  of  all  these  qualities,  be  consciously 
perceived  as  an  exclusively  exterior  object  having  these  specific  qualities  ? 
How  can  different  sensations,  all  absolutely  agreeing  in  this,  that  they  are 
exclusively  subjective,  and  >»s  such,  all  in  common,  utterly  void  of  the 
element  of  extension — how,  \;e  ask,  can  such  sensitive  states  be  perceived, 
not  only  as  exclusively  exterior  objects,  but  as  such,  all  having  this 
element  in  different  degrees^  one  being,  for  example,  ten  or  an  hundred 
times  as  large  as  the  other  ?  Of  two  exclusively  subjective  states,  how, 
•we  ask  again,  can  one  of  these  sensations  be  perceived  in  consciousness 
9S  wholly  a  subjective  state,  and  thus  originate  the  idea  of  a  secandary 
quality  of  matter,  and  the  other  subjective  state  be  perceived  in  the  satno 
consciousness  as  a  quality  of  an  object  wholly  exterior  to  and  separate 
from  the  mind,  and  thus  originate  the  idea  of  a  primary  quality  of  the 
same  subject  1  Of  two  sensations  both  in  common  exclusively  phenomena 
of  the  self,  how  can  we  be  conscious  of  one  as  an  exclusive  quality  of  the 
self,  and  of  the  other  as,  with  equal  exclusiv^eness,  a  quality  of  the  not-self? 
If  the  sensational  hypothesis  is  true,  we  have,  undeniably,  an  absolute 
refutation  of  the  axiom.  Things  equal  to  the  same  things  are  equal  to 
one  another. 

But  one  rational  account  can  be  given  of  the  origin  of  our  fundamental 
apprehensions  of  matter  and  spirit,  viz.,  that  those  apprehensions  must, 
from  the  beginning,  have  been  constituted  wholly  of  original  intuition, 
and  must,  therefore,  be  regarded  as  forms  of  real  knowledge.  No  deduc- 
tion can  have  higher  claims  to  absolute  validity  than  this. 

4.  Immutability,  as  we  have  seen,  is  another  all-authoritative  criterion 
which  characterizes  and  peculiarizes  all  forms  of  absolute  knowledge.  As 
we  have  also  seen,  we  can  no  more  change,  modify,  or  displace  our  essential 
apprehensions  of  space  and  time,  matter  and  spirit  as  realities  in  themselves, 
and  the  identical  realities  which  we  apprehend  them  to  be,  than  we  can 
change,  modify,  or  displace  our  apprehensions  of  a  circle  or  a  square.  Do 
what  we  will,  reason  upon  the  subject  as  we  may,  space  and  time,  matter 
and  spirit  are  before  us  as  known  realities,  and  by  no  possibility  can  we 
change,  modify,  or  displace  our  apprehensions  of  them  as  such  realities. 
Assumptions,  opinions,  beliefs,  and  conjectures  may  '  appear  for  a  little 
while,  and  then  vanish  away.'  While  they  remain  they  are  subject  to 
perpetual  changes  and  modifications.  But  here  are  apprehensions  which 
have  absolute  fixedness  of  form  and  place  in  human  thought.  Nothing 
but  real  knowledge  can  be  even  conceived  to  possess  such  immutably 
fixed  characteristics.      These   apprehensions,  then,  do,  and  must,  take 

3—2 


36  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

rank  as  forms  of  real  knowledge.    Nothing  but  *  science,  falsely  so-called,' 
can  place  them  under  any  other  category. 

5.  The  reasons,  we  remark  again,  for  which  philosophers  of  certain 
schools  have  impeached  the  validity  of  one  or  more  of  these  apprehensions, 
vindicate  most  absolutely  their  claims  to  our  regard  as  forms  of  real 
knowledge.  These  reasons  take  on  two,  and  only  two,  forms  :  (1)  that 
which  we  have  already  considered,  the  elements  of  contradiction  said  to 
be  found  in  the  apprehensions  themselves.  These  contradictions  we  have 
already  shown  to  be  wholly  imaginary,  and  that  the  deduction  based 
upon  them  is  void  of  validity.  On  this  topic  nothing  more  need  be  adduced. 
(2)  The  only  remaining  reason  is  based  upon  the  difficulty  which  philoso- 
phers find  in  accounting  for  the  possibility  of  knowledge,  either  in  its 
subjective  or  objective  form.  One  class  cannot  see  how  knowledge  is 
possible  but  of  'things  without  us,'  and  the  other  but  of  mental  states.. 
The  Idealist,  as  a  consequence,  in  the  language  of  Coleridge,  *  compels 
himself  to  treat '  what  all  admit  to  be  the  universal  faith  of  mankind, 
'that  there  exist  things  without  us,'  as  '  nothing  but  a  prejudice.'  Sup- 
pose that  we  cannot  account  for  the  possibility  of  real  knowledge  in  any 
form.  Shall  we,  for  such  a  reason,  deny  the  facts  of  actual  knowledge, 
the  facts  of  the  reality  of  which  we  are  absolutely  conscious  1  Did  ever 
a  greater  absurdity  have  place  in  the  brain  even  of  a  crazy  philosophy  ? 
In  the  case  before  us,  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  we  have  nothing 
but  a  few  self-styled  philosophers  against  the  world,  philosophers  them- 
selves of  all  schools  included.  While  the  philosopher  is  'compelling 
himself,'  in  the  construction  of  his  system,  to  treat  '  as  nothing  but  a 
prejudice '  this  universal  faith,  in  his  inward  immovable  convictions,  as 
he  himself  acknowledges,  he  believes,  as  absolutely  as  do  the  rest  of 
mankind,  in  space  and  time,  matter  and  spirit,  as  knowable  and  actually 
known  realities.  No  philosopher  of  any  school  will  deny  the  perfect 
truthfulness  of  these  statements.  Apprehensions  distinctly  revealed  in 
the  universal  consciousness  as  having  undeniable  validity  for  the  reality 
and  character  of  their  objects,  apprehensions,  also,  which  can  by  no  pos- 
sibility be  impeached  but  for  the  reason  above  stated,  such  apprehen- 
sions, we  say,  science  must  and  will  recognize  as  forms  of  absolute 
knowledge. 

6.  One  reason  more,  and  we  close  the  present  argument.  The  validity 
of  our  apprehension  of  no  one  of  these  realities  can  be  impeached  but  for 
'grounds  and  arguments'  which,  if  admitted,  would  utterly  annihilate 
the  validity  of  the  Intelligence  itself,  as  a  faculty  of  knowledge  in  every 
form  whatever.  If  apprehensions,  the  validity  of  which  cannot  be 
disproved  or  rendered  improbable,  which,  by  fundamental  characteristics, 
are  distinguished  and  separated  wholly  from  all  assumptions  and  beliefs 
>vhich  may  be  true  or  false,  which  cannot  be  in  the  least  degree  changed, 


FOUR  REALITIES  IN  HUMAN  THOUGHT.  37 

modified,  or  displaced  from  human  thought,  which  co-exist  in  universal 
mind  with  an  absolute  certainty  of  their  truthfulness,  which  are  con- 
sciously constituted  of  the  elements  of  original  intuition,  which  the 
universal  consciousness  distinctly  and  positively  recognizes  as  pertaining 
to  their  objects  as  directly  and  immediately  perceived,  or  as  necessarily 
implied  by  what  is  thus  perceived,  which  can  be  *  treated  as  a  prejudice,' 
but  for  reasons  of  which  science  has  just  cause  to  be  ashamed,  and  which 
finally  can  be  impeached  but  '  for  grounds  and  arguments '  which,  if 
their  validity  be  admitted,  would  imply  the  universal  and  utter  falseness 
of  the  Intelligence  itself  as  a  faculty  of  knowledge,  if  such  apprehensions 
are  not  verified  as  forms  of  absolute  knowledge,  knowledge,  we  repeat, 
in  no  form  has  or  can  have  place  in  the  human  mind.  We  have,  then, 
real  valid  knowledge  of  the  four  realities  under  cqjisideratioi). 


SECTION  IV. 

ORIGIN,  GENESIS,  AND  CHARACTER,  OF  ALL  ACTUAL  AND 
CONCEIVABLE  SYSTEMS  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

The  Diverse  Systems  Defined. 

"We  are  now  fully  prepared  to  explain  distinctly  the  origin,  genesis,  and 
character,  of  all  actual  and  conceivable  systems  of  Philosophy,  systems 
which  demand  the  investigation,  elucidation,  and  criticism  of  the  indi- 
vidual who  writes  a  critical  History  of  Philosophy.  All  such  systems 
have  their  origin  and  genesis  io,  and  take  definite  and  fixed  forms  from, 
certain  postulates  pertaining  to  affirmed  necessary  relations  of  the  human 
Intelligence,  as  a  faculty  of  knowledge  to  these  four  realities.  As  the 
number  of  these  relations  is  fixed  and  definite,  but  a  certain  fixed  and 
definite  number  of  systems  of  Philosophy  ever  have  arisen,  or  can  arise. 
They  are  the  following  :  1.  It  may  be  postulated  that  knowledge  is  pos- 
sible but  in  its  objective  form,  that  is,  relatively  to  *  things  without  us,' 
and  that  it  is  actual  in  this  exclusive  form.  This  postulate  gives  us 
Materialism,  the  system  which  affirms  matter  to  be  the  only  existing  sub- 
stance. 2.  It  may  be  assumed,  on  the  other  hand,  that  knowledge  is 
possible  but  in  its  subjective  form,  that  is,  relatively  to  mind,  or  its 
operations,  and  is  actual  in  this  form.  Hence  Idealism,  with  its  varied 
systems,  Idealism  which  resolves  all  realities  into  mind,  or  its  operations. 
3.  We  may,  in  the  next  place,  deny  the  validity  of  knowledge,  both  in 
its  objective  and  subjective  forms,  affirming  all  our  knowledge  to  be  exclu- 
sively phenomenal,  mere  appearance  in  which  no  reality,  as  it  is  in  itself, 
appears,  and,  in  the  language  of  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  *  that  the  reality 
existing  behind  all  appearance  is,  and  ever  must  be,  unknown.'     This 


38  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

gives  us  the  hypotheses  Scepticism,  which  denies  the  possibility  of  any 
positive  system  of  knowledge.  Of  all  such  systems,  Scepticism  affirms 
that  each  may,  or  may  not,  be  true,  and  that  by  no  possibility  can  wa 
determine  which  is  and  which  is  not  true.  4.  We  may,  finally,  affirm 
knowledge  to  be  possible  and  actual  in  both  forms,  and  hence  include  ia 
our  theory  of  existence  spirit  and  matter,  and  space  and  time,  as  know- 
able  and  known  realities.  Here  we  have  the  hypotheses  of  Kealism,  As 
these  four  include  all  possible  systems,  and  as  each  is  perfectly  incom- 
patible with  every  other,  one  of  these  must  be  true,  and  all  the  rest  false. 
The  grand  problem  in  philosophy  is  this,  to  determine  absolutely  which, 
of  all  these  conflicting  hypotheses,  is  true.  How  can  this  question  be 
answered  %  We  have  the  answer,  we  judge,  in  the  preceding  discussions, 
in  which  it  has  been  incontestably  proven  that  we  have  a  valid  know- 
ledge of  all  the  four  realities  under  consideration,  and,  consequently,  that 
the  Intelligence  is,  in  fact,  a  faculty  of  real  knowledge,  in  its  objective, 
subjective,  and  implied  forms.  In  all  these  respects  the  verdict  of  the 
universal  consciousness  is  perfectly  clear,  distinct,  and  absolute.  The 
self,  the  not-self,  and  space  and  titne,  as  implied  by  the  self  and  not-self, 
of  all  these  we  are  distinctly  conscious  as  objects  of  real  knowledge. 
Nor  is  there  any  distinction  in  the  distinctness  or  absoluteness  of  the 
testimony  of  consciousness  in  respect  to  the  existence  or  character  of 
the  self  and  not-self,  or  in  respect  to  the  reality  of  space  and  time  as 
implied  by  the  known  facts  of  matter  and  spirit.  The  validity  of  con- 
sciousness is  to  be  admitted  or  denied  universally  in  respect  of  all  these 
realities  in  common.  Some  special  remarks,  however,  are  required  in 
lespect  to  each  of  the  hypotheses  before  us.     We  commence  with 

Materialism. 

Materialism,  as  we  have  said,  affirms  the  possibility  of  knowledge  in 
the  objective  form  exclusively,  and  its  actuality  in  this  one  exclusive 
form.  As  nothing  but  the  known  can  have  place  in  a  system  of  science, 
matter  as  the  only  substance,  and  with  it  Atheism,  is  the  necessary  de- 
duction from  this  hypothesis. 

The  doctrine  of  Materialism  is  set  forth  in  two  forms  by  its  various 
advocates,  each  having  a  special  hypothesis  pertaining  to  the  modp.  of  our 
knowledge  of  matter:  (1)  Our  knowledge  of  this  substance  is  affirmed  to 
be  direct  and  immediate,  and  therefore  of  absolute  validity ;  (2)  our  know- 
ledge of  this  same  substance  is  affirmed  to  be  indirect  and  mediate — that 
is,  through  sensation.  No  other  cause,  however,  it  is  assumed,  but  an 
external,  material  one  can  by  any  possibility  account  for  the  existence  of 
sensation.  On  both  hypotheses,  therefore,  our  knowledge  of  this  sub- 
stance is  to  be  regarded  as  having  absolute  validity.  Matter  being  thus 
assumed  to  be  the  only  existing  substance,  and  the  exclusive  principle  of 


ORIGIN,  GENESIS,  AND  CHARACTER  OF  PHILOSOPHY.         -if^ 

all  things,  certain  problems,  nearly  or  quite  definite  in  number  and 
character,  present  themselves,  and  that  with  corresponding  solutions  of 
said  problems.  These  problems  and  solutions,  in  nearly  the  same  forms, 
will  present  themselves  among  all  peoples,  and  be  repeated  over  and  over 
again  in  every  age,  among  whom  and  in  which  the  doctrine  itself  shall 
be  avowed.  The  Materialism  of  the  present  century  has,  in  no  essential 
particulars,  changed  the  forms,  the  problems,  and  the  expositions  and  solu- 
tions of  the  same  which,  in  the  earliest  eras  of  philosophy,  presented 
themselves  to  the  Oriental  and  Grecian  mind.  The  present  state  of 
thought  and  inquiry,  however,  forces  upon  the  advocates  of  this  hypo- 
thesis certain  special  problems  which  must  be  solved,  or  the  hypothesis 
itself  must  be  abandoned.     Let  us  consider  some  of  these  problems. 

Necessary  Problems  which  this  Hypothesis  involves, 

1.  The  general  assumption  that  lies  at  the  basis  of  this  hypothesis  is 
this,  that  hut  one  substance  or  principle  of  all  things  does  or  can  exist.  Unless 
this  assumption  can  be  proved  to  have  absoute  validity,  Materialism  must 
be  regarded  as  nothing  but  a  logical  fiction.  How  can  the  Materialist 
verify  this  assumption  as  a  truth  of  science  1  This  is  the  first  problem 
devolved  upon  him  by  the  exigencies  of  his  system.  Has  this  assumption 
self-evident  validity  ?  No  one  will  pretend  that  it  has.  How  can  its 
validity  be  demonstrated  as  a  deductive  verity  ?  It  is  equally  undeniable 
that  no  grounds  or  arguments  can  be  adduced  to  verify  it  as  such  a  truth. 
The  whole  system  of  Materialism  has,  undeniably,  no  other  basis  than  a 
mere  naked,  lawless  assumption,  and  can  have  no  more  claim  to  our 
regard  than  the  empty  assumption  on  which  the  system  rests. 

2.  The  special  assumption  that  lies  at  the  basis  of  Materialism  in  both 
its  forms  is  this,  that  knowledge  is  possible  but  in  its  external  form,  and 
is  actual  in  this  form.  One  of  the  great  problems  devolved  upon  the 
advocates  of  this  hypothesis  is  the  verification  of  this  assumption.  It  is, 
undeniably,  not  self  evidently  true  ;  nor  can  the  remotest  degree  of  ante- 
cedent probability  be  adduced  in  its  favour.  Eeal  knowledge  in  its  sub- 
jective form  is  just  as  conceivably  possible,  and  therefore  as  antecedently 
probable,  as  in  this.  Equally  impossible  is  it,  by  any  process  of  logical 
deduction,  to  prove  it  true.  Consciousness  does,  indeed,  affirm  knowledge 
to  be  actual  in  respect  to  '  things  without  us.'  Its  verdict,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  equally  absolute  in  respect  to  the  fact  of  subjective  knowledge. 
How,  then,  can  this  assumption  be  verified  as  a  truth  of  science  1  The 
thing  is  undeniably  impossible.  Yet  this  assumption  must  be  absolutely 
verified,  or  the  system  based  upon  it  must  be  regarded  as  a  logical 
fiction. 

3.  A  third  problem  is  this — ^to  explain,  in  consistency  with  the  prin- 
ciple  of  the  system,  the  conscious  facts  of  subjective  knowledge  just  as 


40  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

they  exist  in  universal  mind.  If  knowledge  is  possible  and  actual  but 
in  respect  to  things  without  us — that  is,  in  its  objective  form — then  the 
words  subject  and  oljed,  I  and  thou,  the  me  and  the  not-me,  are  words 
■without  meaning.  If  this  assumption  is  valid,  no  philosopher  can  dis- 
tinguish between  himself  and  the  beast  on  which  he  rides ;  nor  could 
Mr.  Compte,  while  living,  have  known  himself  to  have  been  the  author 
of  'The  Positive  Philosophy.'  Here  is  the  fatal  rock  that  lies  in  the 
necessary  course  of  Materialism.  Upon  that  rock  the  system  must  fall,  or 
be  fallen  upon  by  it.  In  the  one  case  his  system  will  '  be  broken ;  in 
the  other,  it  will'  be  ground  to  powder. 

4.  Another  problem  devolved  upon  the  advocates  of  Materialism  by 
the  exigencies  of  their  system  is  this — to  demonstrate  the  fact  that  the 
fundamental  elements  of  subjective  and  objective  knowledge  are  perfectly 
identical  in  their  nature.  The  fundamental  characteristic  of  the  object 
of  subjective  knowledge  is  the  personal  self  exercising  the  functions  of 
thought,  feeling,  and  voluntary  determination.  The  equally  fundamental 
characteristic  of  the  object  of  objective  knowledge  is  an  impersonal  not- 
self  possessed,  among  others,  of  the  essential  qualities  of  extension  and 
form.  Unless  the  Materialist  can  demonstrate  that  these  two  classes  of 
conscious  facts  are  absolutely  identical  in  their  nature,  and  necessarily 
imply  a  corresponding  identity  in  the  nature  of  the  subject  and  object, 
and  that  nature  an  undeniably  material  one,  the  system  itself  stands  re- 
vealed as  a  fiction  of  a  crazy  Philosophy. 

Can  the  Materialist  solve  such  a  problem  as  this  1  We  have  but  two 
scientific  criteria  by  which  to  judge  of  the  nature  of  substances  through 
their  fundamental  phenomena.  They  are  these  :  Phenomena  in  their 
essential  characteristics  alike  are  to  be  referred  to  the  same  substances ; 
Phenomena  in  their  equally  essential  characteristics  unlike  are  to  be  re- 
ferred to  distinct  and  separate  substances.  These  are  the  immutable  and 
exclusive  principles  of  all  correct  classification  and  deduction.  Now 
when,  and  only  when,  the  Materialist  will  demonstrate  the  fact  that 
thought,  feeling,  and  willing  are  identical  in  nature  with  extension  and 
form,  and  that  all  these  in  common  are  and  must  be  the  exclusive  pheno- 
mena of  external  material  substances,  then  we  will  agree  with  him  in 
affirming  matter  to  be  the  only  existing  substanc& 

5.  Another  fundamental  problem  forced  upon  the  Materialist  by  the 
exigencies  of  his  system  is,  to  verify  the  logical  connection  between  the 
fact  or  facts  which  he  adduces,  and  the  deduction  which  he  draws  from 
these  facts.  We  are  conscious,  he  affirms,  of  a  direct  and  immediate 
knowledge  of  matter  as  an  exterior  substance  having  extension  and  form. 
This  is  his  fact.  The  deductions  drawn  from  this  fact  are  the  following: 
that  matter,  as  possessed  of  these  qualities,  really  exists ;  that  no  substance 
but  matter  does  exist ;  and  that  thought,  feeling,  and  voluntary  deter- 


ORIGIN,  GENESIS,  AND  CHARACTER  OF  PHILOSOPHY.         41 

mination  are  material  phenomena.  We  grant  the  validity  of  his  first 
deduction ;  but  where  is  the  logical  connection  between  this  admitted 
fact  and  his  second  and  third  deductions  1  The  fact  that  matter  is  real 
does  not  present  the  shadow  of  a  reason  for  the  deduction  that  no  other 
substance  does  exist,  much  less  that  thought,  feeling,  and  willing  are 
material  phenomena.  But  this,  undeniably,  is  all  the  basis  which  the 
Materialist  has  for  his  ultimate  deductions. 

6.  The  problems  above  presented  are  based  upon  the  first  hypothesis  of 
Materialism,  the  hypothesis  above  stated — to  wit,  that  our  knowledge  of 
matter  is  direct  and  immediate.  The  problem  devolved  upon  those  who 
affirm  our  knowledge  of  this  substance  to  be  indirect  and  mediate — that 
is,  through  sensation — is  this,  to  prove  that  the  cause  of  sensation  must 
be  an  external  material  one.  We  are  conscious  of  the  sensation  itself, 
not  of  its  cause.  It  is  by  no  means  a  self-evident  truth  that  the  cause  of 
this  mental  state  must  be  either  external  or  material ;  nor  is  there  in  the 
nature  of  this  state  any  *  grounds  or  arguments  *  for  the  deduction  that 
this  state  is  the  product  of  such  a  cause.  For  aught  that  appears  in  the 
fact  itself,  this  cause  may  be  wholly  internal,  or  may  be  the  resultant  of 
a  spiritual  cause  ab  extra.  No  grounds  whatever  can  be  vindicated  for  the 
materialistic  hypothesis  in  the  fact  under  consideration. 

7.  The  next  problem  that  we  notice,  as  devolved  upon  the  Materialist 
by  the  exigencies  of  his  system,  is,  to  meet  and  invalidate  the  counter- 
arguments of  Idealism  against  his  theory.  Idealists  adduce  the  direct 
and  absolute  testimony  of  consciousness  to  the  fact  of  subjective  know- 
ledge, and  to  the  fundamental  difference  between  phenomena  given  by 
internal  and  external  perception.  The  Materialist  cannot  deny  either  of 
these  conscious  facts.  Where  is  his  ground  for  the  assumption  that 
knowledge  is  possible  and  actual  only  in  its  external  form,  and  that 
phenomena,  absolutely  incompatible  in  their  nature,  are  to  be  referred  to 
one  and  the  same  substance,  and  that  that  substance  is  an  external, 
material  one  ?  Has  not  the  Idealist  the  same  reason,  to  say  the  least,  to 
affirm  mind,  or  its  operations,  to  be  the  only  reality,  as  the  Materialist 
has,  or  can  have,  to  affirm  the  same  thing  of  matter  ?  Have  we  not  the 
same  reasons  for  referring  the  phenomena  of  external  perception  to  mind 
that  we  can  have  for  referring  thought,  feeling,  and  willing  to  matter  I 
When  the  Materialist  has  demonstrated  the  invalidity  of  the  axiom — 
things  equal  to  the  same  things  are  equal  to  one  another — he  may  hope 
to  present  a  satisfactory  solution  of  the  problem  under  consideration. 

8.  The  last  problem  which  meets  the  materialistic  hypothesis,  face  to 
face,  is  the  counter-facts  and  demonstrations  of  Realism.  This  theory 
affirms  knowledge,  in  both  its  exterior  and  interior  forms,  to  be  actual, 
and  therefore,  in  itself,  possible.  The  evidence  adduced  in  favour  of  this 
affirmation  is  the  direct,  immediate,  and  absolute  testimony  of  universal 


42  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

consciousness,  and  the  equally  absolute  incompatibility  -with  each  other 
of  the  facts  of  external  and  internal  perception.  That  such  is  the  nature 
of  the  testimony  of  consciousness,  the  Materialist  cannot  deny.  How  can 
he  invalidate  the  evidence  furnished  by  this  testimony  ?  No  dream  of 
false  science  ever  was,  or  can  be,  luoie  visionary  and  baseless  than  is  the 
hypothesis  of  Materialism. 

Idealism — Doctrine  Explained. 
the  general  assumption  of  Idealism  is  that  knowledge  is  possible  only 
in  its  subjective  form.  In  connection  with  this  assumption,  the  system  in 
all  its  forms  assumes  also  that  the  object  of  external  perception  is  not  any 
reality  exterior  to  the  mind,  but  a  certain  sensitive  or  ideal  state  denomi- 
nated sensation.  In  accounting  for  sensation,  as  an  effect,  two  causes  are 
assigned  by  different  idealistic  schools.  According  to  one,  this  cause  is 
■wholly  subjective.  According  to  the  second  school,  this  cause  is  an  un- 
known and  unknowable  entity  exterior  to,  and  separate  from,  the  subject 
of  the  sensation.  This  last  hypothesis  gives  rise  to  the  system  of  Ideal 
Dualism,  of  which  Kant  is  the  leading  modern  advocate  and  expounder. 
According  to  this  school,  not  one,  but  two  substances  exist  as  the  prin- 
ciples of  all  things — the  unknown  and  unknowable  catise,  and  the  equally 
unknown  and  unknowable  subject  of  sensation.  This  hypothesis  is  re- 
pudiated by  all  the  other  idealistic  schools,  for  the  reason  that  it  is  in- 
compatible with  the  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  science,  a  doctrine  which  it 
is  affirmed  must  be  true,  and  which  immutably  demands  that  there  shall 
be  bat  one  substance,  or  principle,  of  all  things. 

The  Theory  of  External  Perception. 
As  the  doctrine  of  external  perception,  as  expounded  by  Kant,  has  been, 
in  fact  and  form,  adopted  by  all  schools  of  modern  Idealism,  we  will  first 
of  all  give  a  specific  exposition  of  this  doctrine.  A  seemingly  exterior 
object  is  before  us,  a  mountain  for  example.  As  given  in  the  universal 
consciousness,  that  object  exists  exterior  to  and  separate  from  the  mind, 
and  the  mind  is  conscious  of  it,  as  an  object  of  direct  and  immediate  per- 
ception, or  of  real  knowledge.  In  this  fact,  viz.  the  nature  of  the  testi- 
mony of  the  universal  consciousness,  all  schools  agree.  According  to 
Idealism,  however,  no  such  object,  no  object  of  any  kind  exterior  to  the 
mind,  exists.  What  is  in  reality  perceived  is  an  exclusively  mental  state 
denominated  sensation,  a  sensitive  or  ideal  state,  made  to  appear  as  an 
exterior  object  by  laws  of  thought  in  the  subject  itself.  Neither  the  self, 
nor  the  not-self,  is  the  reality  which  we  apprehend  it  to  be.  Neither  has 
anything  more  than  a  phenomenal,  or  ideal,  existence.  How  is  this 
sensitive  or  ideal  state  made  to  appear  as  an  object  exterior  to  the  mind, 
and  as  such  a  specific  object )    A  sensation  or  its  idea  is  induced,  all  con- 


ORIGIN,  GENESIS,  AND  CHARACTER  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        43 

sideration  of  its  cause  being  now  left  out  of  the  account.  On  occasion  of 
the  sensation  two  ideas  arise,  those  of  time  and  space.  Through  these 
ideas,  this  subject  state,  the  sensation,  is  made  to  appear  as  an  external 
object,  and  as  possessed  of  this  one  specific  form.  The  only  object  per- 
ceived, *  the  content  of  the  perception,'  is  the  sensation.  The  reason  why 
the  sensation  appears  as  having  exteriority  and  form  is  the  ideas  of  time 
and  s])ace.  *  Space  and  time,'  says  Kant,  *  are  the  pure  forms  of  them ' 
(objects  of  external  perception),  '  sensation  in  general  the  matter.' 

The  necessary  deduction  from  this  doctrine  is  thus  given  by  Kant : 
*  We  have  therefore  intended  to  say  that  all  our  intuition  is  nothing  but 
the  representation  of  phenomenon — that  the  things  which  we  envisage 
are  not  that  in  themselves  for  which  we  take  them,  neither  are  their 
relationships  so  constituted  as  they  appear  to  us,  and  that  if  we  do  away 
with  our  subject,  or  even  only  the  subjective  quality  of  our  senses  in 
general,  every  quality  or  relationship  of  objects  in  space  and  time,  nay, 
even  time  and  space  themselves,  would  disappear,  and  cannot  exist  as 
phenomena  in  themselves,  but  only  in  us.'  We  have  here  the  common 
doctrine,  and  the  common  consequence  of  the  same,  as  set  forth  in  the 
systems  of  Idealism  in  all  their  forms.  The  systems  diflfer  but  in  respect 
to  the  came  of  sensation.  In  regard  to  the  subsequent  developments  of 
thought,  they  all  agree.  Certain  problems  here  present  themselves,  problems 
which  must  be  satisfactorily  solved,  or  Idealism,  in  none  of  its  forms,  can 
be  true.  Certain  other  problems  present  themselves  which  must  be 
solved,  or  Ideal  Dualism  must  take  rank  as  a  system  of  false  science. 

Problems  Common  to  Idealism  in  ail  its  Forms, 

Among  these  common  problems,  we  direct  special  attention  to  the 
following : 

1.  Space  and  time  appear,  in  all  these  systems,  in  two  forms — aa 
realities  in  theniselves,  realities  exterior  to  the  mind,  realities  the  non- 
being  of  which  is  aflSrmed  to  be  absolutely  inconceivable  and  impossible 
— and  then  as  no  exterior  realities  at  all,  but  simply  and  exclusively  as 
regulative  ideas  in  the  mind  itself.  As  given  in  the  universal  intelligence, 
*  regulative  ideas '  are  one  thing,  and  space  and  time  quite  others.  As  given 
in  these  systems,  they  are  one  and  identical  Their  identity  is,  undeniably, 
not  self-evident.  Can  it  be  established  by  proof?  No  philosopher  of  any 
school  will  attempt  such  a  form  of  demonstration  as  that.  Yet  the 
absolute  identity  of  time  and  space,  with  ideas  in  the  mind,  must  be 
demonstrated,  or  Idealism,  in  all  its  forms,  will,  and  must  stand  revealed, 
as  resting  upon  nothing  but  one  of  the  most  absurd  assumptions  that  was 
ever  introduced  into  the  realm  of  science. 

2.  Sensation,  in  all  its  forms,  is  not  only  a  subjective  state,  but  as  such, 
is  absolutely  void  of  extension  and  form.    The  ideas  of  time  and  space 


44  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY, 

pertain  to  their  objects,  not  only  as  exterior  realities,  but  as  strictly 
infinite  in  extent.  How  can  ideas  which  pertain  to  their  objects,  as 
exterior  and  infinite,  make  a  purely  subjective  state  which  is  utterly  void, 
in  itself,  of  all  extension  and  form,  appear  as  being  not  only  exterior  to 
the  mind,  and  independent  of  it,  but  as  possessed  of  definite  extension  and 
form,  and  this  in  a.  finite  degree]  If  the  idea  of  infinite  extension  imparts 
to  that  which  has  no  extension  at  all  the  appearance  of  extension  in  any 
form,  should  not  such  a  cause  impart  the  appearance  of  infinite  extension  ? 
As  related  to  extension  and  form,  all  sensations  possess  absolute  identity 
of  character,  that  is,  the  total  absence  of  these  qualities  in  all  degrees. 
How  can  the  same  ideas,  acting  upon  the  same  identical  characteristics, 
make  one  sensation  appear,  as  an  exterior  object,  incomparably  larger  or 
smaller  than  another  absolutely  similar  object  ?  Can  the  same  identical 
cause,  operating  upon  the  same  identical  characteristics,  produce  results 
utterly  diverse  from  one  another  1  Idealism  must  satisfactorily  answer 
all  these  questions,  or  take  rank  as  *  science  falsely  so-called.' 

3.  No  psychological  fact  can  be  rendered  more  demonstrably  evident 
than  this,  that  in  the  order  of  origination  in  the  mind,  perception  external 
and  internal  precedes  the  ideas  of  time  and  space.  Space  and  time  are 
apprehended  but  as  the  places  of  substances  and  events,  as  implied  by 
the  same,  and  as  the  immutable  condition  of  their  existence  and  occur- 
rence. We  perceive  body,  succession,  and  events,  and,  as  a  consequence, 
apprehend  space,  time,  and  cause  as  implied  by  what  we  perceive.  That 
which  is  known  but  as  the  place  of  another,  and  as  implied  by  it,  can  by 
no  possibility  have  been  originated  in  the  mind  prior  to  the  latter,  and 
have  given  character  and  form  to  it.  The  actual  perception  of  body, 
succession,  and  events,  must  have  preceded  in  the  mind  the  ideas  of  time 
and  space.  ISo  psychological  fact  can,  we  repeat,  have  more  demonstra- 
tive proof  than  this.  Now  in  all  systems  of  Idealism  in  common,  the 
ideas  of  time  and  space  are  affirmed  to  have  existed  in  the  mind  prior  to 
perception  in  any  form,  and  that  these  ideas  determine,  as  causes,  the 
forms  of  perception  as  effects.  Here  is  a  fundamental  pyschological  error 
on  which  all  these  systems  must  inevitably  fall  to  pieces,  unless  this  fatal 
rock  can  be  removed,  the  removal  of  which  is  undeniably  impossible. 

We  will  now  enter  upon  a  direct  consideration  of  the  diverse 
systems  of  Idealisms,  systems  all  of  which,  as  developed  in  all  ages,  take 
rank  in  one  or  the  other  of  the  following  forms,  each  of  which  will  be 
specifically  defined  and  elucidated  in  the  order  designated,  namely,  Ideal 
Pualism,  Subjective  Idealism,  Pantheism,  and  Pure  Idealism, 


ORIGIN,   GENESIS,  AND  CHARACTER  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        45 

Ideal  Dualism. 
The  system  of  Ideal  Dualism  has  been  already  defined.     "We  ■will 
proceed,  at  once,  to  consider  the  special  problems  in  the  full  solution  of 
which  the  destiny  of  the  system  is  involved. 

Problems  especially  pertaining  to  Ideal  Dualism 

1.  To  account  for  the  existence  of  sensation,  two  unknoton  and  un- 
hnowable  realities,  as  we  have  seen,  are  postulated  as  real — the  subject 
and  the  exterior  cause.  In  the  universal  intelligence,  two  knowable  and 
known  substances  are  given — substances  whose  action  and  reaction  upon 
each  other  readily  and  intelligibly  account  for  the  existence  of  sensation, 
namely,  the  mind  which  experiences,  and  the  external  material  cause 
which  induces,  the  sensation.  Why  this  substitution  of  these  unknow- 
able and  unknown  realties  to  account  for  a  known  effect,  when  the  same 
effect  can  be  more  readily  accounted  for  by  reference  to  what  is  given  in 
the  universal  intelligence  as  actually  knowable  and  known  ?  Why  go 
outside  of  the  Intelligence  to  find  *  imaginary  substrata,'  to  account  for  a 
known  effect,  when,  within  the  proper  sphere  of  the  Intelligence,  there 
exist  consciously  known  causes  abundantly  adequate  to  account  for  the 
same  effect}  How  can  the  ideal  dualist  answer  such  questions  as 
these  ? 

2.  Two  unknown  and  unknowable  entities  are  assumed  as  real,  and 
assumed  to  account  for  a  single  known  effect,  sensation.  Why  assume 
two  such  realities  1  As  both  are  unknown,  how  can  it  be  known  that 
sensation  is  not  the  result  of  principles  intrinsic,  and  acting  potentially, 
in  one  of  them  ?  We  have,  by  hypothesis,  a  known  effect,  and  an  un- 
known cause  of  the  same.  As  the  cause  is  wholly  unknown,  we  have 
no  means  of  determining  whether  it  is  one  or  many,  ab  extra  or  ab 
intra.  Does  net  Ideal  Dualism  undeniably  rest  upon  a  mere  lawless 
assumption  ? 

3.  In  the  universal  intelligence,  two  realities  are  given  as  the  conscious 
objects  of  direct  and  immediate  and  absolute  knowledge — the  mind  as 
the  subject  of  sensation,  and  the  exterior  material  cause  of  the  same. 
Ideal  Dualism  impeaches  the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  both  of  these 
entities.  In  this  impeachment,  this  system  is  itself  impeached  by  the 
absolute  testimony  of  the  universal  consciousness^  on  the  one  hand,  and 
by  the  equally  absolute  deductions  of  Materialism,  Idealism  proper,  and 
Eealism  on  the  other.  All  these  systems  unite  with  the  universal  con- 
sciousness in  affirming  the  validity  of  our  knowledge  in  one  or  the  other, 
or  both  these  forms.  Nor  can  Ideal  Dualism  confront  this  affirmation 
with  any  form  or  degree  of  proof,  or  positive  evidence.  Our  knowledge 
of  these  realities  is,  undeniably,  not  self  evidently  invalid.     I^or  can  any 


46  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHTLOSOPHY. 

form  of  proof  be  adduced  against  its  validity,  proof  whose  validity  is 
more  obvious  and  absolute  than  is  that  of  the  forms  of  knowledge  which 
are  impeached.  This  the  advocates  of  the  system  must  do,  or  it  must 
fall  to  pieces  upon  the  absolute  evidence  before  us.  Nothing,  we  are 
quite  safe  in  affirming,  can  save  this  system  from  the  doom  which 
awaits  it. 

Idealism  Proper. 
While  it  is  assumed,  in  common  with  the  teachings  of  Materialism, 
that  but  one  reality,  or  principle,  of  all  things  does,  or  can  exist,  it  may 
be  postulated,  in  opposition  to  Materialism,  that  knowledge  is  possible 
only  in  its  subjective  form,  and  is  actual  in  this  form.  It  follows,  as  a 
necessary  deduction  from  this  assumption  and  postulate,  that  mind,  or  its 
operations,  and  nothing  else,  has  real  being.  We  have  here  the  system 
of  Idealism,  which,  by  different  schools  of  the  same  system,  is  based  upon 
two  distinct  and  opposite  assumptions,  and  under  these,  assumes  two 
forma  It  is  assumed,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  exclusive  condition  of 
the  possibility  of  knowledge  is  '  a  synthesis  of  being  and  knowledge  in 
the  I,'  that  is,  that  the  ohjcd  and  subject  of  knowledge  must  be,  in 
substance,  one  and  identical.  We  give  the  assumption  in  the  words  of 
its  advocates.  From  this  assumption,  as  a  principle,  two  systems  have 
been  deduced — Subjective  Idealism  and  Pantheism  proper.  We  will 
proceed  at  once  to  elucidate  these  two  systems  in  the  order  designated, 
and  will  then  consider  Idealism  in  its  final  form,  and  as  announced  under 
another  assumption. 

Subjective  Idealism. 
The  first  system  assumes  that  the  only  existing  reality  is  the  self- 
conscious  subject,  the  I ;  and  that  all  apparent  realities  within  and  around 
us  are  only  ideal  forms  of  being  and  life,  forms  made  real  by  the  I  to 
the  I,  in  its  process  of  necessary  self-development.  According  to  this 
system,  all  seeming  realities,  'the  me  and  the  not-me,'  the  universe  of 
matter  and  spirit,  with  God  as  their  Author,  are  nothing  in  themselves 
but  pure  ideal  existences,  and  as  such  generated  for  'the  self  by  'the 
self,'  that  is,  for  and  by  the  I  of  consciousness.  God,  as  this  system 
teaches,  it  should  be  borne  in  mind,  does  not  create  the  self-conscious 
subject,  or  the  external  universe ;  but  the  I  generates  these,  and  God  as 
their  ideal  Author.  Hence,  learned  professors  of  this  school  in  the 
German  universities  were  accustomed  to  make  such  announcements  as 
this  to  their  pupils :  *  Having  completed  our  genesis  of  the  universe, 
to-morrow,  gentlemen,  I  will  generate  God.' 


ORIGTS\  GENESIS,  AND  CHARACTER  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        47 

Problems  of  Subjective  Idealism. 

The  problems  forced,  by  the  exigencies  of  this  system,  upon  its  advo- 
cates are  such  as  the  following : 

1.  An  absohite  verification  of  the  general  assumption  that  lies  at  the 
basis  of  Materialism,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  Idealism  in  all  its  forms,  on 
the  other,  the  assumption  that  but  one  substance  or  principle  of  all  things 
exists.  We  have  already  said  all  that  is  required  in  respect  to  this 
assumption.  We  simply  restate  here  what  we  have  proved  before,  that  this 
assumption  must  be  absolutely  verified  as  a  principle  in  science,  or  not 
only  Materialism,  but  also  Idealism  in  all  its  forms,  must  be  regarded  as 
systems  of  false  science.  But  this  assumption,  as  we  have  already 
demonstrated,  cannot  be  thus  verified,  and  Idealism,  in  all  its  forms, 
stands  revealed  as  resting  upon  no  scientific  basis  whatever. 

2.  The  next  problem,  the  solution  of  which  is  required  of  Subjective 
Idealism,  is  a  similar  verification  of  the  particular  assumption  that  lies, 
with  that  just  referred  to,  at  the  basis  of  Idealism,  in  all  its  forms,  the 
assumption  that  knowledge  is  possible  but  in  its  subjective  form,  and  is 
actual  only  in  this  form.  This  assumption,  as  we  have  shown,  has  no 
self-evident  validity,  and  cannot,  by  any  possibility,  be  verified  *by 
grounds  and  arguments '  as  a  truth  of  science.  Yet  this  impossible  end 
must  be  absolutely  realized,  or  Idealism,  in  all  its  forms,  must  stand 
demonstrated  as  having  no  other  basis  but  two  empty  and  lawless  assump- 
tions, and  must  fall  to  pieces  upon  these  fatal  rocks, 

3.  The  third  problem  devolved  upon  the  Subjective  Idealist  is  this: 
To  answer  the  question.  How  does  this  sole  reality,  '  the  me  '  existing  no- 
where and  in  no  time,  time  and  space  being  only  laws  of  thought,  accord- 
ing to  the  system — how  does  this  sole  reality,  we  say,  first  of  all  originate 
by  itself  and  for  itself  the  identical  thought  representations  which  it 
actually  has  of  the  self  and  the  not-selt^  the  I,  the  universe,  and  God  1 
Unless  the  advocate  of  the  system  can  show  us  just  how  the  thing  is 
done,  and  prove  to  us  absolutely,  that  it  was,  and  must  have  been,  done 
in  that  one  exclusive  form,  we  can  have  no  evidence  whatever  that  we 
are  not  being  imposed  upon  by  fictions,  instead  of  facts.  Can  the  Sub- 
jective Idealist  give  the  explanation  and  furnish  the  demonstration 
required  1     Not  unless  he  is  omniscient. 

4.  How  does  this  single  '  I,'  in  the  next  place,  absolutely  recognize  the 
self  and  the  not-self,  '  the  I,'  the  universe,  and  God,  time  and  space,  as 
real,  distinct,  and  absolutely  separate  existences,  and  thus  image  to  itself 
a  great  lie  t 

6.  How  does  this  lying  '  I '  then  recognize  the  self  as  the  only  reality, 
and  the  not-self,  the  universe,  an<l  God,  together  with  time  and  space,  a-s 
mere  ideal  generations  of  '  the  I  myself  I '  t     It  is  not  sufficient  for  the 


48  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

advocate  of  the  system  to  affirm  that  '  the  I  *  does  make  these  successive 
summersets.  He  must  render  the  process  itself  demonstrably  evident  to 
our  minds,  and  equally  demonstrate  its  validity,  or  we  demeutate  our- 
selves when  we  credit  his  revelations. 

6.  The  advocates  of  this  system  must  also  furnish  absolute  criteria  by 
which  we  can  determine,  with  perfect  certainty,  which  of  these  processes 
conducts  us  to  real  truth.  To  demand  less  than  this,  is  to  put  out 
our  own  eyes,  and  surrender  ourselves,  as  blind  dupes,  it  may  be,  to 
philosophic  jugglery.  Can  the  advocate  of  the  system  furnish  the  required 
criteria?  Can  he  solve  all  the  problems  forced  upon  him  by  the  absolute 
exigencies  of  his  own  system?  He  can  no  more  do  it  than  he  can 
systematize  chaos. 

Pantheism  Proper. 

Subjective  Idealism  affirms  the  *  I  of  consciousness  *  to  be  the  only 
reality,  and  deduces  from  this  individual  subject  *  the  me  and  the  not- 
me,'  the  universe  and  God,  space  and  time,  as  they  are  represented  in 
thought.  Pantheism,  the  second  form  of  Idealism,  assumes  the  Infinite 
and  Absolute  to  be  alone  real,  and  deduces  from  this  sole  reality  time 
and  space  and  all  substances  represented  in  thought  as  existing  in  time 
and  space.  The  Infinite,  according  to  the  first  system,  is,  by  a  process  of 
self-development,  deduced  from  the  Finite.  The  Finite,  according  to  the 
second  system,  is  by  a  similar  process  deduced  from  the  Infinite.  Each 
system  rests  upon  the  common  assumption  already  refuted,  and  borrows 
all  its  claims  from  that  assumption,  viz.,  that  but  one  substance,  or  prin- 
ciple of  all  things,  exists.  Each  system,  also,  rests  upon  the  particular 
assumption,  which  we  have  also  refuted,  that  knowledge  is  possible 
only  in  the  subjective  form,  and  is  actual  but  in  this  form.  Unless  both 
these  assumptions  are  absolutely  verified,  Idealism,  in  all  its  forms,  must 
be  ranked  among  the  fictions  of  false  science. 

Special  Assumptions  of  Pantheism  and  Pure  Idealism. 

There  is  a  special  assumption  peculiar  to  Pantheism  and  Pure  Idealism, 
an  assumption  which  demands  special  attention  in  this  connection.  The 
special  assumption  of  Idealism  is,  as  we  have  stated,  that  knowledge  is 
possible  only  in  its  subjective  form,  and  is  actual  in  this  form.  It  is  un- 
deniable that  the  exclusive  object  of  self-consciousuess'  is  the  personal 
self,  the  individual  mind  as  endowed  with  the  functions  of  thought,  feel- 
ing, and  willing.  If  but  one  substance  or  principle  of  all  things  does 
exist,  and  we  are  conscious  of  the  self  as  a  real  existence,  the  necessary 
deduction  would  be,  that  the  self  only  is  real.  But  this  destroys  the 
unity  of  science,  as  it  does,  in  fact,  admit  that  there  may  be  as  many 
selfs,  as  there  are  individual  consciousnesses.     To  the  existence  of  but 


ORIGIN,  GENESIS,  AND  CHARACTER  OF  PHILOSOPHY.         49 

one  actual  suhstance,  or  principle  of  all  things,  the  conscious  self  must  be 
regarded  as,  and  must  be,  in  fact,  an  attribute  of  a  higher  unity,  the 
Infinite  and  Absolute.  How  can  we  know  that  such  an  infinite  and 
absolute  form  of  being  exists,  and  constitutes  of  itself  the  whole  real 
essence  of  the  universe  1  Not  surely  through  the  consciousness,  as  it 
exists  in  the  universal  mind.  We  are,  as  we  have  said,  as  far  as  subjective 
knowledge  is  concerned,  conscious  only  of  the  individual  and  personal 
self.  Much  less  are  we  conscious  of  the  self  as  not  being  a  distinct, 
separate,  and  individual  existence,  but  a  part  of  the  essence  of  the 
Absolute,  and  of  the  latter  as  the  only  real  existence.  This  knowledge, 
according  to  the  teachings  of  Pantheism,  in  all  ages,  is  attained  wholly  by 
means  of  a  special  faculty  of  *  intellectual  intuition,'  a  faculty  called  by 
the  Germans  '  intellectual  anschauung,'  a  faculty  of  which  philosophers 
of  special  endowments  are  exclusively  possessed.  Coleridge  calls  this 
faculty  '  the  philosophic  faculty,'  and  affirms  that  those  only  who  are  en- 
dowed with  this  special  scientific  insight  take  rank  as  philosophers.  All 
but  this  favoured  few  are  necessitated  to  rely  wholly  upon  their  own 
native  intuitions  and  necessary  deductions  from  the  same.  If  they  would 
enjoy   the  results  of  the  higher  insight,  they  must   implicitly  accept, 

*  asking  no  questions  for  conscience'  sake,'  the  sovereign  dicta  of  the  philo- 
sophers. '  These  original  and  innate  prejudices,  which  nature  herself  has 
implanted  in  all  men,  are,  to  all  but  the  philosopher,'  Coleridge  adds, 

*  the  first  principles  of  knowledge  and  the  final  test  truth.'  That  he  may 
enjoy  the  functions  of  the  higher  insight,  'the  philosopher,'  he  adds, 
'  compels  himself  to  treat  this  faith '  (the  intuitions  of  the  universal  intel- 
ligence) *  as  nothing  but  a  prejudice,  innate,  indeed,  and  connatural,  but 
still  a  prejudice.'  All  our  intuitive  forms  of  knowledge  and  belief  are 
assumed  to  be  wholly  illusory  and  false.  *  This  purification  of  the  mind,' 
says  Coleridge,  *  is  affected  by  an  absolute  and  scientific  scepticism  to  which 
the  mind  voluntarily  determines  itself  for  the  specific  purpose  of  future 
certainty.'  *  This  intellectual  intuition,'  in  the  language  of  Mr.  Morreli, 
'  is  a  kind  of  higher  and  spiritual  sense,  through  which  we  feel  the  pre- 
sence of  the  Infinite  both  within  and  around  us ;  moreover,  it  afifords  us 
a  species  of  knowledge  which  does  not  involve  the  relation  of  subject 
and  object,  but  enables  us  to  gaze  at  once  by  the  eye  of  the  mind  upon 
the  eternal  principle  itseU'  from  which  both  proceed,  and  in  which 
thought  and  existence  are  absolutely  identical.  Before  the  time  when 
creation  began,  we  may  imagine  that  an  infinite  mind,  an  infinite  essence, 
or  an  infinite  thought  (for  here  all  these  are  one),  filled  the  universe  of 
space.  This,  then,  as  the  self-existent  One,  must  be  the  only  absolute 
reality  ;  all  else  can  be  but  a  developing  of  the  one  original  and  eternal 
being,  and  intellectual  intuition  is  the  faculty  by  which  we  rise  to  the 
perception  of  this,  the  sole  ground  and  realistic  basis   of  all   things.' 

4 


so  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

*  Unless  by  this  spiritual  vision  we  can  realize  the  presence  of  the  Infinite, 
as  the  only  real  and  eternal  existence,  we  have  not  the  capacity,'  Schelling 
affirms,  *  to  take  the  very  first  step  into  the  region  of  the  speculative 
philosophy.' 

The  above  citations  and  explanations  clearly  evince  the  fact  that  we 
have  rightly  apprehended  and  expounded  the  real  doctrine  of  Pantheism, 
together  with  its  method  of  procedure  throughout.  The  following,  as 
given  by  these  philosophers  themselves,  is  a  true  statement  of  the  Pan- 
theistic teachings  and  principles : 

1.  All  our  fundamental  apprehensions  pertaining  to  spirit,  matter,  space, 
time,  the  universe,  and  God  are  intuitive,  innate,  connatural,  irresistible, 
unchangeable,  and  irradicable,  forms  of  thought  and  belief — intuitive  con- 
victions which  necessarily  arise  in  the  mind  from  principles  inhering  in 
the  Intelligence  itself.  On  no  subject  are  the  teachings  of  these  philoso- 
phers more  distinct  and  absolute  than  on  this. 

2.  It  is  not  on  the  professed  authority  of  intellectual  convictions,  but 
upon  the  avowed  authority  of  a  purely  acknowledged  as,sMm^//o«,  that  these 
intuitive,  necessary,  and  irradicable  convictions  are  '  treated  as  nothing 
but  a  prejudice  or  illusions  '  in  the  Pantheistic  Philosophy.  On  this  sub- 
ject its  advocates  practise  no  deceptions. upon  us;  they  themselves  affirm 
their  assumption  to  have  no  other  basis  but  a  sentiment  of  will,  a  senti- 
ment to  which  *  the  mind  voluntarily  determines  itself.' 

3.  The  existence  and  absolute  authority  in  science  of  this  faculty  of 
intuition  is  also  an  exclusive  matter  of  assumption.  It  is  not  professed 
that  the  existence  and  authority  of  this  faculty  are  intuitive  truths,  nor 
are  any  arguments  in  proof  to  that  effect  adduced.  On  the  other  hand, 
we  must  assume  all  this,  as  the  immutable  condition  of  '  taking  the  very 
first  step  into  the  region  of  the  speculative  Philosophy.' 

4.  Another  equally  absolute  assumption  of  Pantheism  is  this — that  as 
a  principle  in  science,  naked  assumptions,  mere  sentiments  of  will,  have, 
and  should  have,  higher  place  and  authority  than  original,  irresistible, 
and  irradicable  intuitions  of  the  Intelligence.  It  is  upon  the  openly 
avowed  authority  of  the  former  that  that  of  the  latter  is  set  aside  and 

*  treated  as  a  prejudice.' 

6.  If  we  accept  the  teachings  of  Pantheism,  we  adopt  a  system  which 
openly  ignores  and  repudiates  acknowledged  principles  and  facts  of 
original  intuition,  and  is  openly  founded  upon  admitted  assumptions  and 
nothing  else.  We  must  also  denounce  as  vulgar  prejudice  all  methods  in 
science  which  have  for  their  basis  admitted  principles  and  facts  of  original 
intuition,  and  treat  as  the  only  scientific  method  that  which  constructs 
systems  upon  nothing  but  mere  assumptions.  Coleridge  admits  that 
Idealism,  in  all  its  forms,  rests  upon  nothing  but  assumptions  ;  but  science 
in  every  form,  he  adds,  has  in  fact  no  other  basis.     We  must  assume 


ORIGIN,   GENESIS,  AND  CHARACTER  OF  PHILOSOPHY.         51 

something,  or  we  cannot  reason  at  all  This  is  all  true,  but  not  at  all  in 
the  sense  in  which  he  affirms  it.  True  science  assumes  original  intuitions 
of  the  Inielligence  as  valid  for  scientific  deduction ;  false  science  adopts 
and  treats  mere  assumptions,  or  sentiments  of  will,  as  having  even  higher 
authority  than  real  intuition.  And  here,  undeniably,  is  the  real  difference 
between  Materialism,  Pantheism,  and  Idealism  in  all  its  forms,  and  real 
science. 

Necessary  Problems  of  Pantheism, 

The  necessary  problems  devolved  by  the  immutable  exigencies  of  this 
system  upon  its  advocates  are  such  as  the  following.  We  must  also  insist 
upon  a  full  demonstrative  solution  of  all  these  problems,  provided  we 
would  not  put  out  our  own  eyes,  and  then  give  ourselves  up  to  the 
guidance  of  self-styled  philosophers  as  totally  blind,  it  may  be,  as  our- 
selves. But  what  are  the  necessary  problems  under  consideration  ?  They 
are  such  as  the  following  : 

1.  After  giving  absolute  demonstration  of  the  validity  of  the  assumption 
that  but  one  substance  or  principle  of  all  things  does  exist,  and  also  of 
the  impossibility  of  knowledge  but  in  its  subjective  form,  the  Pantheist 
must  absolutely  demonstrate  the  existence  and  supreme  authority  of  this 
*  faculty  of  intellectual  intuition.*  The  existence  and  authority  of  this 
faculty  are  not,  as  we  have  seen,  intuitive  truths ;  neither  can  they  be 
admitted,  without  infinite  folly  on  our  part,  but  as  absolutely  demon- 
strated truths.  This  is  what  the  Pantheist  is  bound  to  require  of  himself, 
and  what  we  are  bound  to  demand  of  him,  as  the  immutable  condition  of 
admitting  the  validity  of  his  system.  Will  he,  can  he,  give  us  the  re- 
quired demonstration  ?  Because  he  cannot  see  how  a  certain  form  of 
knowledge  is  possible,  must  we  deny  its  actual  existence,  when  we  and 
all  the  world  are  absolutely  conscious  of  its  presence  in  our  own  minds  1 
This  faculty,  if  it  exists,  is  admitted  not  to  be  a  faculty  of  primary,  but 
wholly  of  secondary,  forms  of  intuitive  knowledge.  Can  the  Pantheist 
give  us  demonstrative  reasons  for  the  assumption  that  secondary  and 
derivative  intuitions,  supposing  them  to  exist,  should  have  sovereign 
authority  above  and  against  the  primary  t  Are  not  the  latter  the  source 
and  test  of  all  valid  knowledge  f  We  prudently  wait  for  the  required 
demonstration. 

2.  Another  necessary  problem  of  Pantheism  is  this — to  furnish  demon? 
strative  reasons  why  mere  and  admitted  assumptions  should  have,  iu 
science,  supreme  authority  over  and  against  real  and  admitted  original, 
immutable,  and  irradicable  intuitions.  Nothing,  we  judge,  but  a  reckless 
and  lawless  assumption  can  cut  this  *  Gordian  knot' 

3.  The  Pantheist  himself  will  admit  that  all  assumptions  do  not  have, 
and  should  not  have,  this  sovereign  authority.     Before  we  can,  without 

4—2 


52  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

stultifying  ourselves,  admit  the  sovereign  validity  and  authority  of 
assumptions  of  any  kind,  we  must  require  our  self-styled  philosopher  to 
give  us  tests  of  demonstrative  validity — tests  by  which  we  can  infallibly 
distinguish  between  assumptions  which  have  this  sovereign  authority  and 
those  which  have  no  authority  at  all.  Will  he  furnish  us  with  the  re- 
quired criteria  ? 

4.  We  may,  and  we  shall,  if  we  reason  as  wise  and  prudent  men,  we 
remark  finally,  require  our  philosopher  to  render  demonstrably  evident  to 
our  minds  why  we  should  not  regard  and  treat  as  logical  fictions  all  systems 
of  every  kind — systems  which  manifestly  have,  and  which  are  admitted 
and  affirmed  by  their  advocates  to  have,  no  other  basis  than  mere  assump- 
tions. The  reason  why  Philosophy  has  so  often  run  mad  in  this  crazy 
world  is  this — that  philosophers,  as  well  as  others,  have  not  been  rigidly 
required  to  give,  *  with  meekness  and  fear,  a  reason  of  the  hope  that  is  in 
them.' 

Pure  Idealism. 

The  necessary  condition  of  valid  knowledge  is  stated  in  another  form 
by  another  school  of  Idealists,  and  is  denominated  the  principle  of  abso- 
lute IDENTITY.  This  condition  is  thus  announced  by  Schelling  and 
Hegel,  the  question,  as  we  have  stated  before,  which  of  the  two  originated 
the  idea  being  yet  a  matter  of  dispute ;  the  condition,  we  say,  is  thus 
announced  by  these  individuals,  and  universally  adopted  by  Pure  Idealists, 
to  wit :  Eeal  knowledge  is  possible  but  upon  the  condition  that  '  being 
and  knowing  shall  be  one  and  identical,'  that  is,  that  knowledge  itself  and 
the  object  of  knowledge  shall  be  absolutely  one  and  identical.  Coleridge 
announces  the  same  principle  in  this  form,  *  a  perfect  identity  between 
the  subject  and  object,  that  is,  between  the  self,  the  intelligence  which 
knows,  and  the  object  known.'  The  system  resulting  from  this  principle 
is  that  of  Pure  Idealism.  According  to  the  fundamental  deductions  of 
this  system,  no  substances,  material  or  mental,  finite  or  infinite,  exist. 
Nor  are  space  and  time  realities  in  themselves,  any  more  than  matter  and 
spirit  which  we  apprehend  as  existing  and  acting  in  space  and  time. 
Ideas,  knowledge  itself,  ideas  without  subjects  or  objects,  ideas  alone  are 
real.  All  else  is  illusion,  creation  is  nothing  but  a  process  of  pure 
thought,  and  time  and  space,  matter  and  spirit,  have  being  only  as  ideas, 
and  God  is  nothing  but  the  central  idea  about  which  others  revolve,  and 
fcom  which  they  take  form. 

General  and  Particular  Problems  op  Pure  Idealism. 

The  general  problem  which  the  exigencies  of  this  system  forces  upon 
its  advocates  is  this,  to  deduce  from  this  one  'principle  of  absolute 
identity '  all  our  apprehensions  and  experiences  just  as  they  are,  to  assume 


ORIGIN,  GENESIS,  AND  CHARACTER  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        53 

nothing  not  real,  to  admit  and  explain  all  that  is  real,  and  so  to  elucidate 
and  explain  all  of  our  actual  apprehensions  and  experiences,  as  to  render 
it  demonstrably  evident  that  this  one  exclusive  system  is  and  must  be 
true,  and  that  all  others  must  be  false.  Until  all  this  is  fully  accom- 
plished, science  absolutely  requires  us  to  regard  and  treat  our  fundamental 
world-conceptions  and  necessary  ideas  as  having  real  validity  for  the 
reality  and  character  of  their  objects.  In  their  endeavours  to  accomplish 
their  object,  the  advocates  of  this  system  are  necessarily  met  by  particular 
problems  such  as  the  following,  problems  all  of  which  they  must  fully  and 
absolutely  solve,  or  stand  revealed  to  the  world  as  the  abettors  of  *  science 
falsely  so-called :' 

1.  A  demonstration  of  the  validity  of  the  principle  of  absolute  identity 
itself  This  principle  undeniably  is  not  self-evidently  true,  nor  is  there, 
in  the  remotest  degree,  any  antecedent  probability  in  its  favour,  actual 
knowledge  in  other  forms,  and  on  other  conditions,  being  just  as  con- 
ceivably possible  as  in  this  one  exclusive  form,  and  on  this  one  exclusive 
condition.  To  prove  the  validity  of  this  principle,  they  must  find  a  form 
of  thought  of  the  validity  of  which  we  are  and  must  be  more  certain  than 
we  are,  or  can  be,  of  that  of  our  necessary  ideas  and  world-conceptions,  a 
form  of  thought  utterly  incompatible  with  our  apprehensions  of  time  and 
space,  mind  and  matter.  Can  such  a  form  of  thought  be  found  ?  We 
apprehend  time  and  space,  for  example,  with  the  conscious  impossibility 
of  conceiving  of  them  as  not  existing,  or  as  being  in  any  respects  different 
from  what  we  apprehend  them  to  be.  Can  a  form  of  thought  be  found 
to  which  a  greater  certainty  attaches  than  this  ?  Our  apprehensions  of 
matter  and  spirit  are  attended  with  a  conscious  certainty  of  their  validity, 
a  conscions  certainty  which  utterly  excludes  all  doubt.  Can  there  be 
adduced  a  form  of  thought  which  is  attended  with  a  conscious  certainty 
more  absolute  % 

2.  The  second  particular  problem  imposed  upon  Pure  Idealists,  by  the 
exigencies  of  their  systems,  is  this,  to  show  how  and  why  pure  thought, 
existing  as  the  sole  reality,  first  of  all  absolutely  attaches  itself  as  an 
attribute  to  a  self-conscious  personal  intelligence  who  is  consciously  pos- 
sessed of  other  attributes  than  thought,  to  wit,  feeling  and  voluntary 
determination  ;  how  and  why  it  is  that  it  ^rms  it  to  be  absolutely  im- 
possible for  itself  to  exist  but  as  the  attribute  of  a  real  personal  thinker, 
that  all  events  imply  a  cause,  and  all  phenomena  substance,  or  real 
being ;  how  and  why  it  is  that  thought  then  becomes  directly  and  abso- 
lutely conscious  to  itself  of  exterior  material,  realities,  and  thus  appre- 
hends, as  thus  perceived,  a  scientifically  organized  universe,  created  and 
controlled  by  an  infinite  and  perfect  personal  God ;  and  how  and  why, 
finally,  thought  apprehends  this  universe  as  existing  in  time  and  space, 
and  attaches  to  these  realities  the  attributes  of  absolute  and  necessary 
existence. 


54  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

3.  The  third  particular  problem  devolved  upon  pure  Idealists  by  the 
necessary  exigencies  of  their  system  is  to  demonstrate  the  possibility  of 
the  existence  of  thought  itself  without  a  thinker,  of  phenomena  without 
substance,  of  events  without  causes,  of  the  possibility  of  that  which 
thought  affirms  to  be  impossible,  the  invalidity  of  necessary  ideas  for 
example,  and  finally  the  possibility  of  thought  existing  and  developing 
itself  nowhere  and  in  no  time. 

4.  Another  problem  is  this :  to  show  how  and  why  it  is  that 
thought,  pure  knowledge,  after  having  originated  from  laws  necessarily 
inhering  in  itself  all  the  above  apprehensions  and  experiences,  finally 
from  laws  also  inhering  in  itself,  lifts  the  vail  and  stands  revealed  to 
itself  as  the  sole  reality,  and  by  self-compulsion  repudiates  all  its  prior 
apprehensions  and  experiences  as  mere  '  illusions.' 

5.  The  last  problem  is  to  render  demonstrably  evident  to  our  minds 
why  we  should  regard  this  last  and  compulsory  form  of  thought  as  having 
exclusive  validity,  and  'compel  ourselves  to  treat '  all  our  necessary  and 
absolute  ideas  and  world-knowledge  as  *  nothing  but  a  prejudice.'  All 
the  above  problems  the  advocates  of  this  system  must  fully  and  satisfac- 
torily solve,  or  stand  convicted  before  the  world  as  exercising  the  worthy 
functions,  in  the  language  of  Kant,  of  *  playing  tricks  upon  reason.' 

Eelations  to  bach  other  op  the  Hypotheses  op  Materialism  and 

Idealism. 

Before  closing  our  criticisms  upon  the  two  general  systems  above  con- 
sidered, those  of  Materialism  and  Idealism,  we  deem  it  important  to 
direct  special  attention  to  the  relations  which,  as  rival  and  contradictory 
systems,  they  sustain  to  each  other.  A  careful  consideration  of  these 
relations  will  absolutely  evince  the  fact  that  they  are  not  only  contra- 
dictory, but  mutually  destructive  systems,  and  that,  as  a  consequence, 
neither  of  them  can  be  true.  To  set  this  department  of  our  subject  in 
distinct  visibility  before  the  mind,  we  shall  be  necessitated  to  repeat  a 
few  statements  formerly  made.     On  these  hypotheses,  then,  we  remark : 

1.  That  both  in  common  rest  primarily  upon  one  and  the  same  assump- 
tion, and  from  it  borrow  all  their  claims  to  validity,  an  assumption  not 
self-evidently  true,  which  has  no  antecedent  probability  in  its  favour,  and 
which  is  demonstrably  false.  We  refer,  of  course,  to  the  assumption 
that  there  does,  in  fact,  '  exist  but  one  system  or  principle  of  all  things.' 
That  this  assumption  is  not  of  self-evident  validity  is  undeniable,  as  we 
have  already  shown.  The  existence  of  two  substances,  matter  and  spirit, 
is  just  as  conceivable,  and,  therefore,  possible  in  itself,  as  that  of  one. 
The  idea  that  one  of  them  exists  renders  it  in  no  degree  whatever  pro- 
bable even  that  the  other  does  not  exist.  It  is  just  as  conceivable,  and, 
therefore,  possible  and  probable  in  itself,  that  all  four  of  the  realities  to 


ORIGIN,  GENESIS,  AND  CHARACTER  OF  PHILOSOPHY.         55 

which  we  have  so  often  referred  exist  together,  as  that  any  one  of  them 
exists  alone. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  have  absolute  proo^  as  we  have  abundantly 
shown,  of  the  actual  co-existence  of  all  these  realities,  of  matter  and  spirit 
as  the  conscious  objects  of  direct,  immediate,  and  intuitive  knowledge, 
and  of  space  and  time,  as  necessarily  implied  by  the  conscious  objects  of 
direct  and  immediate  external  and  internal  perception.  This  assumption, 
therefore,  stands  revealed  as  a  demonstrated  error. 

What  infinite  presumption,  also,  does  the  presentation  of  this  assump- 
tion, as  a  principle  in  science,  imply  1  Permit  us,  in  the  name  of  science, 
to  ask  the  disciples  and  leaders  of  each  of  these  schools  whether  they 
have  actually  traversed  infinite  space,,  and  can  affirm  from  personal  know- 
ledge that  throughout  this  boundless  domain  but  one  single  substance 
exists  %  If  but  one  substance  does,  in  fact,  exist,  none  but  absolute 
omniscience  has  the  remotest  right  to  affirm  it  as  a  theory  of  universal 
being  and  its  laws,  and  finally  impose  that  theory  upon  the  world  as  a 
system  of  science.  Philosophers,  those  of  certain  schools  especially,  need 
to  be  reminded  that  with  them,  in  common  with  the  rest  of  mankind, 
knowledge  has,  and  presumption  should  have,  its  limits ;  and  that  when, 
as  in  each  of  the  cases  before  us,  they  construct,  upon  mere  assumptions, 
proud  superstructures  of  affirmed  knowledge  systematized,  they  are,  in 
fact,  building  up  nothing  but  logical  fictions 

2.  Each  of  these  hypotheses,  we  remark,  in  the  next  place,  rests  directly 
upon  a  particular  assumption  identical,  in  character,  with  the  general  one 
which  we  have  just  exposed.  Each  system  assumes  and  affirms,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  one  that  knowledge  is  possible  and  actual  but  in  its 
exterior,  or  objective,  and  the  other  only  in  its  interior,  or  subjective, 
form.  Take  from  both  the  general,  and  from  each  its  special  and  peculiar 
assumption,  and  no  systems  can  stand  revealed,  as  being  mere  and  exclusive 
logical  fictions,  than  is  undeniably  true  of  each  of  the  hypotheses  under 
consideration.  Knowledge  is  possible  but  in  respect  '  to  things  without 
us,'  postulates  Materialism,  and  is  actual  in  this  exclusive  form.  Matter, 
therefore,  and  that  alone,  is  real  Knowledge  is  possible,  replies  Idealism, 
but  upon  the  exclusive  condition  of  an  absolute  '  synthesis,'  or  *  identity  ' 
*  of  being  and  knowing,'  that  is,  in  its  subjective  form,  and  is  actual  in 
this  form.  Mind  or  thought,  therefore,  and  it  alone,  is  real.  One  or  the 
other,  or  both  of  these  hypotheses,  must  be  false.  This  is  undeniable. 
As  each,  as  compared  with  the  other,  is  just  as  conceivably  true  as  the 
other,  neither  can  lay  any  claims  whatever  to  intuitive,  or  necessary, 
certainty  ;  nor  can  one  be  regarded,  as  in  itself,  more  probably  true  than 
the  other.  The  positive  evidence  in  favour  of  each,  as  against  the  other, 
is  absolutely  balanced.  We  are,  undeniably,  just  as  conscious  of  actual 
knowledge,  in  one  form,  as  in  the  other.     The  argument  of  each,  as 


5,6  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

against  the  exclusive  claims  of  the  other,  has,  therefore,  demonstrative 
validity.  What,  then,  is  the  undeniable  character  of  the  assumption  on 
which,  as  a  principle,  each  of  these  systems  immediately  rests'?  It  is, 
undeniably,  nothing  but  a  mere  assumption,  with  none  whatever  of  the 
characteristics  of  a  principle  in  science,  an  assumption  which  is  not 
intuitively  true,  in  favour  of  which  no  form,  or  degree,  of  even  antecedent 
probability  can  be  adduced,  and  against  the  validity  of  which  the  most 
absolute  forms  of  positive  proof  may  be  adduced.  Now  a  system  can,  in 
no  form  or  degree,  be  more  substantial  than  the  principle  on  which  it  is 
based. 

3.  Each  of  these  incompatible  assumptions  has  absolute  omnipotent 
power  in  its  assaults  upon  the  other,  and  is  the  perfection  of  impotence 
against  the  blows  of  its  antagonist.  Each  presents  arguments  against  the 
exclusive  claims  of  the  other — arguments  which  the  latter  can,  by  no 
possibility,  invalidate,  and  which  must  be  invalidated,  or  these  claims 
will  stand  revealed  as  demonstrated  abortions.  Neither  can  present  a 
solitary  argument,  or  form  of  proof,  in  its  own  favour,  which  the  other 
cannot  counterbalance  by  arguments  and  forms  of  proof  of  the  same 
identical  character  and  force  in  favour  of  its  own  validity.  Does  one 
appeal  to  consciousness,  the  other  can,  with  equal  force,  make  the  same 
appeal,  we  being  just  as  absolutely  conscious  of  real  knowledge  in  on© 
form  as  we  are,  or  can  be,  in  the  other.  Does  one  assume  knowledge  to 
be  possible  but  in  one  form,  the  other  can  assume,  with  the  same 
assurance,  and  with  equal  reason,  that  knowledge  is  possible  but  in  the 
opposite  form. 

4.  Each  of  these  assumptions,  we  remark  once  more,  is  confronted  by 
the  absolute  claims  of  a  third  hypothesis,  one  whose  impregnable  *  grounds 
and  arguments '  are  absolutely  destructive  of  the  claims  of  the  material 
assumption,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  ideal,  on  the  other.  We  refer,  of 
course,  to  the  hypothesis  of  Realism.  While  this  hypothesis  denies  the 
validity  of  each  of  these  assumptions,  in  its  exclusive  form,  it  aflfirms  its 
full  validity  as  far  as  the  fact  of  knowledge  in  that  form  is  concerned. 
This  affirmation  is  based  upon  the  equal  and  absolute  testimony  of  con- 
sciousness to  the  fact  and  validity  of  actual  knowledge  in  both  its 
subjective  and  objective  forms.  *  In  our  perceptive  consciousness,'  says 
Sir  William  Hamilton,  *  there  is  revealed,  as  an  ultimate  fact,  a  self  and 
a  not-self,  each  given  as  independent,  each  known  only  in  antithesis  to 
the  other.  No  belief  is  more  intuitive,  universal,  immediate,  or  irresistible 
than  that  this  antithesis  is  real  and  known  to  be  real ;  no  belief  is,  there- 
fore, more  true.  If  the  antithesis  be  illusive,  self  and  not-self,  subject  and 
object,  I  and  thou  are  distinctions  without  a  difference,  and  consciousness, 
so  far  from  being  '  the  internal  voice  of  our  Creator,'  is  shown  to  be,  like 
tiatau,  '  a  liar  from  the  beginning.'     The  testimony  of  consciousness  is, 


ORIGIN,  GENESIS,  AND  CHARACTER  OF  PHILOSOPHY.         sj 

undeniably,  just  as  direct,  immediate,  and  absolute  to  the  existence  of 
matter  as  an  exterior  substance  distinct  and  separate  from  the  knowing 
subject,  and  as  possessed  of  real  extension  and  form,  as  it  is  to  our  own 
personal  existence,  as  exercising  the  functions  of  thought,  feeling,  and 
voluntary  determination,  and  in  no  case  is  its  testimony  more  distinctly 
and  absolutely  pronounced  than  it  is  in  each  of  these.  If  this  faculty  is 
to  be  regarded  as  deceiving  us,  in  respect  to  either  of  these  forms  of 
knowledge,  it  is  to  be  deemed  a  lying  witness  everywhere.  What  must 
we  think  of  professed  systems  of  knowledge — systems  which  take  exclu- 
sive form,  and  borrow  all  their  claims,  from  such  shadowy  assumptions 
as  these  1  In  the  light  of  impartial  science,  such  systems  can  take  no 
higher  rank  than  logical  fictions.  One  of  the  great  mysteries  of  the  past 
is  the  fact  that  such  baseless  and  insubstantial  forms  of  thought  could, 
for  such  long  ages,  command  the  regard  of  great  thinkers.  Pure  Idealism, 
as  we  have  seen,  cannot  be  true  unless  the  axioms — body  implies  space, 
succession,  time,  events,  causes,  and  things  equal  to  the  same  things  are 
equal  to  one  another — are  false.  No  axiom  is,  or  can  be  of  more  absolute 
validity  than  is  the  affirmation  of  universal  mind,  that  thought  implies 
a  thinker,  and  the  reality  of  thought  the  prior  existence  of  a  real  faculty 
and  object  of  knowledge.  We  krum,  and  cannot  but  know,  that  this 
system  cannot  be  true.  Yet  this  system  does  not  rest  upon  assumptions 
more  obviously  invalid,  than  does  Materialism,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
Idealism,  in  its  other  forms,  on  the  other. 

IIL — SCEPTIOISlt 

The  Doctriite  Defined. 
A  third  position  may  be  postulated  in  regard  to  the  relations  of  our 
intelligence  to  these  realities.  It  may  be  assumed  that  real  knowledge, 
both  in  its  objective  and  subjective  forms,  is  impossible ;  that  all  our 
perceptions,  both  external  and  internal,  are  illusory,  and  void  of  objective 
validity ;  that  knowledge,  in  all  its  forms,  is  exclusively  phenomenal, 
mere  appearance  in  which  no  reality  appears,  or  is  manifested  as  it  is  in 
itself  and  that,  consequently,  in  the  language  of  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer, 
*  the  reality  existing  behind  all  appearance  is,  and  ever  must  be,  un- 
known,' 'matter  and  spirit'  being,  in  the  language  of  Mr.  Huxley, 
'nothing  but  imaginary  substrata  to  which  we  refer  certain  facts 
of  which  we  are  conscious.'  Nothing  whatever  is  really,  but  only 
relatively,  known.  This  relativity,  and  real  non-validity,  pertain,  not 
merely  to  matter  and  spirit,  but  equally  to  time  and  space,  and  all  neces- 
sary ideas  and  principles.  In  his  '  Logic,'  and  in  his  reply  to  Sir 
William  Hamilton,  Mr.  Mill  formally  combats  the  doctrine  that  incon- 
ceivability is  an  evidence  of  truth  or  untruth,  that  is,  that  the  £Eu:t  that 


S8  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

we  cannot  conceive  a  proposition  to  be  false  is  evidence  of  its  truth,  or 
that  we  cannot  conceive  a  judgment  to  he  true  is  evide>ice  of  its  untruth. 
We  cannot,  for  example,  even  conceive  that  the  proposition,  things  equal 
to  the  same  things  are  not  equal  to  one  another,  is  true,  or  that  the  pro- 
position, a  strait  line  cannot  enclose  a  space,  is  false.  Inconceivability, 
even  in  such  cases,  Mr.  Mill,  in  fact  and  form,  maintains  is  no  valid 
evidence  of  truth  or  untruth.  God,  according  to  this  system,  is  the 
unknowable  and  unknown  ultimate  cause  of  the  facts  of  an  unknown 
and  unknowable  universe.  '  The  religious  sentiment,'  says  Mr.  Herbert 
Speijcer,  'must  ever  continue  to  occupy  itself  with  a  universal  causal 
agent  posited  as  not  to  be  known  at  all.'  This  system,  which  absolutely 
impeaches  the  Intelligence  itself,  and  that  universally,  as  a  faculty  of 
knowledge,  in  respect  to  all  realities  in  common,  is  called  Scepticism. 
Scepticism  proper  proposes  no  positive  hypothesis  in  regard  to  being,  or 
its  laws,  but  denies  absolutely  the  possibility  of  any  hypothesis,  which 
can  be  verified,  as  true  or  false.  Of  each  of  the  hypotheses  of  Materialism, 
Idealism,  and  Eealism,  it  affirms  that  it  may  or  may  not  be  true,  and  that 
it  is  absolutely  impossible  to  determine  which  is,  and  which  is  not,  true. 
Such  is  the  Sceptical  Philosophy. 

Doctrines  Common  to  this  and  Other  Systems. 

In  common  with  all  other  systems.  Scepticism  admits  and  affirms  that, 
by  a  necessary  law  of  the  Intelligence,  in  its  intuitive  procedure,  space  and 
time,  matter  and  spirit,  are  apprehended  as  knowable  and  known  realities, 
and  that  our  apprehensions  of  them  as  such  realities  can  by  no  possibility 
be  changed,  modified,  or  displaced  from  human  thought.  Notwithstand- 
ing all  this,  it  professes  to  find  fall  proof  that  these  apprehensions  are 
*  nothing  but  a  prejudica* 

The  Grand  Problem  of  this  System. 

The  grand  problem  devolved,  by  the  exigencies  of  this  system,  upon  its 
advocates  is  an  absolute  demonstration  of  the  validity  of  their  universal 
impeachment  of  the  Intelligence  as  a  faculty  of  knowledge.  They  must 
demonstrate  the  fact  that  *  mind  and  matter  are  nothing  but  imaginary 
substrata,'  that  space  and  time  are  no  realities  in  themselves,  or  that  they 
are  not  the  realities  which  we  necessarily  apprehend  them  to  be.  In 
short,  they  must  render  it  demonstrably  evident  that,  of  all  realities  as 
they  are,  we  do  know,  and  can  know,  just  nothing  at  all ;  or,  in  the 
language  of  an  old  Grecian  Sceptic,  that  *  we  don't  know,  that  we  don't 
know  anything  at  all.'  This  they  must  fully  accomplish,  or  stand 
revealed  as  acting  the  sophist  before  the  world. 


ORIGIN,  GENESIS,  AND  CHARACTER  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        59 

The  Condition  on  which  this  Problem  can  he  Solved. 
To  attain  their  purpose  these  men  must  adduce  some  form  of  knowledge 
of  the  validity  of  which  we  are,  and  must  he,  more  absolutely  certain  than  we 
are  of  our  own  personal  existence,  of  that  of  material  substances  around  us, 
and  of  the  reality  of  time  and  space,  a  form  of  knowledge  wholly  incompati- 
ble with  the  validity  of  our  apprehensions  of  these  realities.  Science  de- 
mands all  this  as  the  immutable  condition  of  admitting  the  possible 
validity  of  the  Sceptical  hypothesis.  Who  need  to  be  told  that  Sceptics 
can  never  accomplish  the  end  demanded  of  them  by  the  exigencies  of 
their  system,  that  they  can  by  no  possibility  adduce  the  form  of  know- 
ledge referred  to,  that  of  nothing  can  we  be  more  certain  than  we  are  of 
our  own  personal  existence,  as  real  beings  who  actually  think,  feel,  and 
will,  of  the  reality  of  matter  which  is  directly  and  immediately  present 
before  us,  as  possessed  of  extension  and  form,  and  of  that  of  space  and 
time  which  we  know  as  being  of  necessity  the  realities  which  we  appre- 
hend them  to  be  1 

The  Sceptical  Assumption  Refuted. 

The  fundamental  assumption  of  Scepticism,  as  we  have  seen,  is  this : 
that  the  human  intelligence,  from  its  nature  and  laws,  is  a  faculty  of 
knowledge  relatively  to  but  one  reality,  to  wit,  its  own  utter  incapacity 
to  know  anything  of  mind,  matter,  space,  and  time,  as  they  are  in  them- 
selves, if  they  exist  at  all,  or  of  any  other  form  of  being,  if  it  is  real. 
To  this  absolute  conscious  ignorance  Mr.  Huxley  informs  us  that  scientists 
of  his  school  '  have  attained  by  their  wisdom.' 

What  is  the  character  of  this  assumption  1  It  has,  undeniably,  no  self- 
evident  validity.  Equally  manifest  is  it  that  this  assumption  stands  in 
open  opposition  to  the  intuitive  convictions  of  the  race,  as  well  as  to  the 
direct,  immediate,  and  absolute  testimony  of  universal  consciousness. 
All  men.  Sceptics  among  the  rest,  intuitively  and  absolutely  believe  that 
they  know  mind  and  matter,  space  and  time,  as  realities  in  themselves. 
Of  the  presence  of  such  knowledge  now  in  the  mind,  all  men  are  abso- 
lutely conscious.  To  justify  himself  to  himself,  and  to  the  world,  of 
whom  he  professes  to  know  nothing,  the  Sceptic  must,  we  repeat,  give  us 
an  absolute  demonstration  of  the  validity  of  his  fundamental  assump- 
tion, a  demonstration  of  the  validity  of  which  we  are,  and  must  be, 
more  absolutely  certain  than  we  are,  or  can  be,  of  our  own  existence,  and 
of  that  of  the  universe  around  us,  together  with  that  of  space  and  tima 
This  is  the  least  that  can  be  demanded  of  him.  We  know  absolutely 
that  he  can  never  accomplish  such  an  end  as  that ;  that  he  can  never 
induce  the  Intelligence  to  perpetrate  upon  itself  such  a  felo  de  se. 

The  Sceptic  has  no  expectation  or  desire  that  his  hypothesis  shall  be 
accepted  anywhere  but  in  the  sphere  of  morals  and  religion.    In  all 


6o  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

other  departments  of  belief  and  action  his  inward  choice  is  that  men 
shall  think  and  act  as  they  would  were  his  monstrous  absurdities  never 
obtruded  into  the  realm  of  science.  We  have  already  fully  exposed  the 
utter  emptiness  and  sophistry  of  the  reasonings  by  which  the  validity  of 
this  hypothesis  is  affirmed  to  have  been  established.  On  this  point 
nothing  need  be  added  in  this  connection.  Sceptics  universally  admit 
that  their  hypothesis  is  utterly  opposed  to  the  intuitive  convictions  of 
the  race,  and  that  these  convictions  *  remain  proof  against  all  grounds 
and  arguments '  which  they  can  adduce  for  their  subversion.  Yet  they 
maintain  that  on  account  of  their  '  grounds  and  arguments,'  which  have 
no  power  to  change,  modify,  or  displace  these  convictions,  we  ought,  as 
far,  at  least,  as  morals  and  religion  are  confirmed,  to  '  compel  ourselves  to 
treat '  this  *  innate  and  connatural,'  this  unchangeable  and  irradicable 
*  faith,  as  nothing  but  a  prejudice.'  What  shall  we  do  ?  We  cannot,  if 
we  would — and  the  Sceptic  is  here  in  the  same  limbo  as  ourselves — we 
cannot,  if  we  would,  we  say,  change,  modify,  or  displace  the  direct, 
immediate,  and  absolute  consciousness  which  we  have  both  of  the  self 
and  of  the  not-self,  and  of  the  necessary  existence  of  time  and  space.  If 
we  attempt  to  compel  ourselves  to  treat  our  apprehensions  and  con- 
victions in  regard  to  them  as  mere  illusions,  matter  and  spirit  are  imme- 
diately before  us  as  the  same  consciously  known  entities  that  they  pre- 
viously were,  and  we  find  it  just  as  impossible  as  ever  even  to  conceive 
of  the  non-existence  of  time  and  space,  any  more  than  we  can  affirm  that 
it  is  possible  for  the  same  thing  at  the  same  moment  to  exist  and  not  to 
exist.  We  choose,  therefore,  to  receive,  as  truths  of  science,  undeniably 
intuitive  and  necessary,  convictions  of  our  own  and  the  universal  intelli- 
gence, rather  than  '  compel  ourselves  to  treat,'  as  such,  mere  assumptions 
of  scientists,  assumptions  for  the  validity  of  which  no  good  reasons  what- 
ever can  be  offered,  and  no  *  grounds  or  arguments '  adduced  which  do 
not  characterize  those  who  adduce  them  as  sophists  who  are  employing 
their  philosophical  talents  for  no  higher  end  than,  in  the  language  of 
Kant,  which  we  have  before  cited,  *  playing  tricks  upon  reason.' 

lY.    Sealisil 

The  System  Defined. 

The  last  position,  which  may  be  taken  in  regard  to  the  relations  of  the 
Intelligence  to  the  four  realities  under  consideration,  now  claims  our  atten- 
tion. It  may  be  postulated,  as  we  have  said,  that  the  Intelligence,  rela- 
tively to  all  these  realities,  is  a  faculty  of  valid  knowledge,  and  that,  as 
far  as  their  essential  characteristics  are  concerned,  they  consequently  are 
li-nowable  and  known  objects. 

This  system  is  properly  denominated  Realism,  because  it  affirms  real 


ORIGIN,  GENESIS,  AND  CHARACTER  OP  PHILOSOPHY.         6i 

valid  knowledge  to  be  possible  and  actual  in  its  subjective,  objective,  and 
implied  forms,  and  presents  for  scientific  systematization  spirit  and  matter, 
space  and  time,  as  realities  in  themselves,  and  as,  in  all  their  fundamental 
characteristics,  knowable  and  known  as  such  realities.  In  its  theory  of 
universal  knowledge  it  professedly  gives  us  a  scientifically  systematized 
whole  including,  as  its  essential  parts,  space  and  time  as  the  real  places  of 
substances  and  events,  finite  mind  with  its  powers  of  thought,  feeling, 
and  voluntary  determination,  matter  with  its  directly  and  intuitively 
known  primary,  and  its  indirectly  and  relatively  known  secondary, 
qualities,  the  universe  material  and  mental  organized  and  operating 
throughout  in  absolute  accordance  with  scientific  ideas  and  principles, 
and  finally  an  infinite  and  perfect  self-conscious  personal  God,  '  clearly 
seen  by  the  things  that  are  made '  as  the  Creator  and  Governor  of  all  con- 
ditional existences,  and  these  realities  as  verified  facts  and  truths  of  science ; 
in  other  words,  a  Philosophy  op  Universal  Existence  and  its  Laws. 
This  system  also  professedly  explains  and  elucidates  the  origin  and  genesis 
of  all  the  sciences,  pure  and  mixed,  and  vindicates  for  them  all  not  only 
a  relative^  but  absolute  validity. 

The  General  Problem  of  this  System, 

The  general  problem  devolved,  by  the  necessary  exigencies  of  this 
system  upon  its  advocates,  is  a  verification,  as  a  fact  and  truth  of  science, 
of  the  absolute  validity  of  the  general  postulate  of  this  system  in  regard 
to  the  extent  and  limits  of  valid  knowledge  This  end  being  accompli.shed, 
all  the  subsequent  deductions  of  the  system  follow  by  logical  necessity. 
The  truth  of  this  statement  is  undeniable,  and  has,  in  fact,  never  been 
denied.  The  claims  of  the  deductions  of  Theism  to  take  rank  as  truths  of 
science  have  never  been  denied,  in  any  age  or  in  any  school  of  Philosophy, 
but  upon  one  exclusive  ground — to  wit,  a  formal  impeachment  of  the 
validity  of  human  knowledge  in  some  one  or  all  of  the  specific  forma  in 
which  that  knowledge  is  impeached  in  the  system  of  Materialism,  Idealism, 
or  Scepticism.  Hence  the  perfect  necessity  of  verifying,  as  a  truth  of 
science,  the  validity  of  the  postulate  under  consideration.  In  accom- 
plishing this  result,  the  following  particular  problems  must  be  fully 
solved : 

Particular  Special  Problems  of  the  System. 

1.  A  specific  answer  to  the  question,  '  What  is  the  necessary,  immutable, 
and  exclusive  condition  of  the  possibility  of  valid  knowledge  in  any  form  1 
and  in  what  form,  and  upon  what  conditions,  can  the  question.  What  can 
we  know  ?  receive  a  valid  answer  V     This  problem  has  been  already  solved. 

2.  A  similar  demonstration,  which  has  already  been  given,  of  the 
specific  scientific  ciiteria  which  characterize  and  distinguish  all  forms  of 


62  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

valid  knowledge,  in  opposition  to  all  forms  of  thought  which  are  not 
valid  for  the  reality  and  character  of  their  objects,  criteria  especially 
which  peculiarize  and  separate  hasis  principles  from  assumptions  in  science, 
and  facts  of  real  knowledge  as  distinguished  from  objects  of  opinion,  be- 
lief, and  conjecture — objects  not  known  to  be  real,  facts  which  may,  and 
those  which  cannot,  have  place  as  constituent  elements  in  systems  of  real 
science. 

3.  By  a  rigid  application  of  the  above  condition  and  criteria,  the  human 
intelligence  must  be  demonstrated  to  be,  relatively  to  spirit  and  matter, 
space  and  time,  a  faculty,  and  that  they  are  to  it  objects  of  real  knowledge ; 
that  they  consequently  are  realities  in  themselves,  and  knowable  and 
known  as  they  are  in  themselves ;  that  Realism  is  based  exclusively  upon 
principles  having  necessary  validity,  and  facts  of  valid  knowledge ;  and 
that  its  deductions  are  the  necessary  consequents  of  such  principles  and 
facts,  and  as  a  system  it  consequently  has  the  absolute  characteristics  of 
'  knowledge  systematized.' 

4.  It  must  be  rendered  equally  evident  that  all  the  sciences,  pure  and 
mixed,  are  fully  explicable  on  the  principles  of  this  system,  and  in  theii 
light  stand  fully  revealed  and  vindicated  as  the  interpreters,  not  of  rela- 
tive, but  real  truth. 

5.  It  must  be  rendered  demonstrably  evident,  we  remark  finally,  that 
all  opposite  systems,  Materialism,  Idealism  in  all  its  forms,  and  Scepticism, 
are  based  wholly,  not  upon  principles  of  science,  but  upon  mere  assump- 
tions employed  as  principles ;  and  that  their  constituent  elements 
are  either  a  partial  induction  of  facts  of  valid  knowledge,  or  objects  of 
opinions  and  beliefs  which  are  subject  to  continuous  changes  and  modifi- 
cations, and  displacement  from  human  thought ;  and,  consequently,  that 
the  deductions  of  these  systems  have  all  the  characteristics  of  errors  of 
false  science. 

Ebalism  Verified. 

As  Materialism,  Idealism  in  its  various  forms,  Scepticism,  and  Eealism 
embrace  all  conceivable  and  possible  systems,  and  one  of  them  must  be 
true,  and  all  the  others  false,  each  being  utterly  imcompatible  with  every 
other,  when  all  the  five  problems  just  named  have  been  fully  solved,  the 
entire  deductions  of  Eealism  will  stand  revealed  as  absolutely  verified 
truths  of  science.  Most  of  the  above-designated  problems  have  already 
been  solved,  and  all  others  will  be  in  future  departments  of  this  Treatise. 

As  Materialism,  Idealism,  and  Scepticism  have  also  been  proven  to  be 
systems  of  false  science,  we  might  close  the  argument  here,  and  assume, 
as  already  verified,  Eealism  as  '  knowledge  systematized.'  The  import- 
ance of  the  subject,  however,  demands  a  special  verification  of  the  claims 
of  this  system.     We  shall  confine  our  remarks  in  this  connection  to  one 


ORIGIN,  GENESIS,  AND  CHARACTER  OF  PHILOSOPHY.         63 

point  exclusively,  as  the  whole  issue  turns  here.  We  refer  to  the  question 
already  determined — to  wit,  the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  the  four 
realities  under  consideration. 

Postulates  Common  to  AU  Systems. 

The  postulate  strictly  common  to  all  these  systems  is  this — ^that  the 
human  intelligence  is,  relatively  to  soTne  realities,  a  faculty  of  valid  knowledge. 
If  this  postulate  is  not  granted,  nothing  is  or  can  be  given  to  reason 
about,  and  there  is  no  intelligence  given  to  rea5»on  about  realities  if  they 
do  exist.  Something  must  be  given — universal  doubt,  if  you  please — as 
real,  and  really  known.  All  agree  in,  then,  and  none  profess  to  doubt, 
the  strict  validity  of  the  postulate  under  consideration. 

With  the  same  strictness  of  unanimity  all  agree  that  there  exist  in  the 
mind  a  great  variety  and  diversity  of  forms  of  thought — forms  some  of 
which  pertain  to  their  objects  as  verily  known  realities,  while  others 
pertain  to  their  objects  not  as  really  known,  but  as  of  conceivable  or 
inconceivable,  possible  or  impossible,  probable  or  improbable,  or  even 
conjectural  realities.  All  agree,  also,  in  the  facts  that  in  the  mind  there 
exist  assumptions  in  which  forms  of  thought  of  some  of  the  classes  last 
named,  forms  not  known  to  be  valid,  are  introduced  as  principles  or  facts 
in  the  construction  of  systems  of  affirmed  science.  80  far,  no  difference 
of  opinion  does  or  can  obtain  among  real  thinkers.  From  these  common 
convictions  and  admissions  it  follows  by  logical  necessity  that  the  distinc- 
tion between  systems  of  real  and  false  science  lies  here.  The  former  are 
constituted  exclusively  of  principles,  facts,  and  deductions  which  exist  in 
the  mind  as  forms  of  valid  knowledge,  and  which,  when  clearly  appre- 
hended, must  be  recognized  by  the  universal  intelligence  as  such  forms. 
Systems  of  false  science,  on  the  other  hand,  are  constituted,  in  whole  or 
in  part,  of  forms  of  thought  not  really  valid  for  the  reality  and  character 
of  their  objects — that  is,  of  mere  assumptions  employed  as  principles — 
and  facts  of  merely  conceivable,  possible,  probable,  or  conjectural,  and  of 
not  knoum  reality,  or  fallacious  deductions. 

Criteria  of  Forms  of  Valid  Knovcledge  as  already  Stated. 
How  especially  shall  we  distinguish  valid  principles  from  mere  assump- 
tions, and  facts  of  real  knowledge  from  those  which  have  nothing  but  a 
conceivable,  possible,  probable,  or  conjectural  reality  %  In  other  words, 
what  are  the  fixed,  immutable,  and  infallible  criteria  by  which  we  can 
certainly  distinguish  forms  of  valid,  from  those  of  invalid,  knowledge  ? 
This  is  the  fundamental  question  which  lies  at  the  threshold  of  our 
investigations,  and  must  be  validly  solved,  or  we  shall  advance  blindly 
forward  in  all  our  inquiries  throughout  the  whole  sphere  of  thought 
We  have  adduced  this  as  one  of  the  criteria  after  which  we  are  inquiring; 


64  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

to  wit,  absolute  fixedness  and  immutahility.  Eeal  knowledge,  of  course, 
must  have  these  characteristics.  When  we  really  and  truly  know  an 
object,  our  apprehensions  of  it  must  have  these  characteristics,  that  they 
cannot  be  changed,  modified,  or  displaced  from  human  thought.  Assump- 
tions and  all  forms  of  thought,  which  have  only  a  conceivable,  possible, 
probable,  or  conjectural  validity,  are  of  course  subject  to  perpetual  changes 
and  modifications,  and  may  be  displaced  from  human  thought  and  regard. 
Principles  in  science  and  forms  of  necessary  knowledge  have  this  immuta- 
ble characteristic,  that  we  cannot  even  conceive  of  their  non-validity. 
Facts  of  science  are  objects  which  may  be  conceived  to  be  real  or  unreal, 
but  cannot  be  apprehended  as  unreal,  or  as  being  different  from  what  we 
apprehended  them  to  be. 

Our  Knowledge  of  Space  and  Time  Verified. 
In  view  of  these  self-evident  criteria  of  valid  knowledge,  Realism 
affirms,  as  objects  of  necessary  knowledge,  first  of  all,  the  reality  of  space 
and  time,  and  that  they  are  in  themselves  such  realities  as  we  apprehend 
them  to  bo.  The  reason  is  obvious.  We  can  by  no  possibility  even 
represent  them  in  thought  as  not  existing,  or  as  being  in  any  respects 
different  from  what  we  apprehended  them  to  be.  For  these  reasons  our 
apprehensions  of  them  cannot  in  the  least  form  or  degree  be  changed, 
modified,  or  displaced  from  human  thought.  Compare  now  these  appre- 
hensions with  the  general  assumption  which,  as  a  principle,  lies  at  the 
basis  of  Materialism  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  Idealism  on  the  other,  to 
wit,  that  but  one  substance  or  principle  of  all  things  does  exist.  It  is 
undeniable  that  the  actual  existence  of  two  substances  is  just  as  conceiv- 
able, and  therefore  as  possible  in  itself,  as  one.  2i^or,  as  we  have  shown, 
can  any  being,  but  one  absolutely  omniscient,  have  any  right  to  affirm  that 
but  one  substance  does,  in  fact,  exist.  We  have  finally  absolute,  intuitive 
proof  that  two  distinct  and  separate  substances  do  exist.  Compare  once 
more  our  apprehensions  of  space  and  time  with  the  two  particular  assump- 
tions that  lie  at  the  basis  of  the  Materialistic,  and  of  the  Idealistic  hypo- 
theses, the  one  affirming  that  knowledge  is  possible  and  actual  but  in  its 
objective,  and  the  other,  but  in  its  subjective,  form.  No  fact  of  con- 
sciousness is  more  undeniable  than  this,  that  the  possibility  of  knowledge 
is  just  as  conceivable,  and  as  consciously  actual  in  one  form  as  in  the 
other,  and  in  both  forms  as  in  either.  What  right,  then,  has  either  of 
these  assumptions  to  the  place  they  occupy  in  these  systems,  that  of  a 
principle  in  science  t  No  more,  we  reply,  than  the  assumption  that  a 
strait  line  may  enclose  a  space.  In  what  light  must  true  science  regard 
systems  which  cannot  be  true  unless  those  assumptions  have  absolute 
validity  1  As  logical  fictions,  and  nothing  else.  Our  apprehensions  of  time 
and  space,  on  the  other  hand,  stand  revealed  as  undeniable  forms  of  valid 


ORIGIN,  GENESIS,  AND  CHARACTER  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        65 

knowledge,  and  as  having,  of  absolute  right,  their  places  in  forms  of 
'  knowledge  systematized.* 

Our  Apprehensions  of  Matter  and  Spirit  Verified, 
On  the  authority  of  the  same  criteria,  Eealism  affirms  our  apprehensions 
of  spirit  and  matter  to  be  forms  of  contingent  but  absolutely  valid  know- 
ledge. The  reason  is  that  while  in  external  and  internal  perception,  we 
have  a  direct,  immediate,  and  absolute  consciousness  of  them  as  actually 
existing,  and  as  such  as  distinct  and  separate  realities,  the  fundamental 
apprehensions  of  tliem  which  we  thus  obtain  can  no  more  be  changed, 
modified,  or  displaced  from  human  thought,  than  can  our  apprehensions 
of  a  circle  or  a  square.  While  we  have  many  variable  and  shadowy 
assumptions,  opinions,  and  conjectures  in  regard  to  these  substances,  our 
apprehensions  of  tlie  self  as  a  thinking,  feeling,  willing,  personal  existence, 
and  of  the  not-self  as  a  real  exterior  substance,  having  extension  and 
form,  never  change,  and  cannot  be  displaced.  Space,  time,  spirit,  and 
matter,  then,  are  realities  in  themselves,  and  as  such  are  knowable  and 
known  realities.  Our  apprehensions  of  them  also  have  all  possible 
characteristics  of  forms  of  valid  knowledge,  of  verities  of  science,  and 
Kealism  rests  u^ua  no  other  basis  than  the  rock  of  truth. 


.     iECTION  IV. 
MISCELLANEOUS  TOPICS  AND  SUGGESTIONS. 

XATEBIALISM,   IDEALISM,  AND   SCEPTICISM,  ALL  CONSTKUCTED   THKOUGHODT  ATTEB  OOTt 
AND   THE  SAME   METHOD — BEGQING   THE   QUESTION. 

"We  have  reserved  for  a  separate  consideration  a  very  important  character- 
istic of  the  systems  above  named,  the  systems  whose  claims  we  have 
already,  it  may  be  thought,  sufficiently  investigated.  There  is  no  more 
vicious  form  of  scientific  and  logical  error  known  to  the  human  mind, 
than  that,  which  goes  by  the  name  of  begging  the  question  an  error 
whifth  consists,  not  oul}'  in  the  substitution  of  assumptions  in  the  place 
of  principles,  a  id  the  induction  of  false,  instead  of  real  facts,  but  in 
the  adoption  of  mere  assumptions  which  are  really  identical  with  the 
conclusion  disiied  to  be  reached.  Here  lies  the  fundamental  vice  of 
Materialism,  of  Idealism  in  all  its  forms,  and  finally  of  Scepticism.  The 
basis  principles  of  all  these  systems  are  assumptions  which  are  identical 
with  their  proximate  and  final  deductions,  a  fact  which  marks  them,  all 
in  common,  as  systems  of  seductive  error:  This  charge  we  will  now  pro- 
ceed to  verify. 

The  fundanifMital  issue  between  Eealism,  and  with  it  Theism,  and 
Materialism,  ou  ttu;  one  hand,  and  Idealism  on  the  other,  is  this :  Whether 

6 


66  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

one,  and  but  one  substance  or  principle  of  all  things  does  exist.  Unless 
this  one  issue  be  granted,  or  verified  by  proof  against  Realism,  not  one 
step  can  be  taken  in  the  direction  of  either  of  the  other  systems.  This 
issue  is  openly  begged  by  the  assumption,  that  but  one  substance  and 
principle  of  all  things  do  exist,  an  assumption  not  even  professedly  self- 
evident,  and  for  the  verification  of  which  by  proof  no  attempt  is  made. 
The  validity  of  the  assumption,  on  the  other  hand,  is  taken  for  granted, 
and  upon  it,  as  an  admitted  principle,  a  system  is  at  once  reared  up.  This 
assumption  being  granted,  every  issue  with  Realism  is  settled  at  once,  for 
if  but  one  substance  does  or  can  exist,  matter  and  spirit  cannot  both  be 
real.  But  who  does  not  perceive  that  the  issue  with  Realism  is  begged,  and 
begged  by  a  mere  assumption  which  is  identical  with  the  deduction 
desired  1  Thus,  the  first  step  is  taken  in  exclusive  conformity  to  one  of 
the  most  vicious  principles  known  to  science. 

As  soon  as  this  first  step  has  been  thus  taken,  a  fundamental  issue 
arises  between  the  two  rival  systems.  Materialism,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
Idealism  on  the  other.  One  of  these,  the  previous  assumption  being 
granted,  must  be  true,  and  the  other  false.  How  can  it  be  known  which 
is  true,  and  which  false  %  Not  by  intuition,  or  by  deduction,  the  claims 
of  each,  as  against  the  other,  being  absolutely  balanced.  Mr.  Huxley  is 
undeniably  right  when  he  affirms  that  '  our  knowledge  of  what  we  call 
the  material  world  is,  to  begin  with,  at  least  as  certain  and  definite  as 
that  of  the  spiritual  world.'  On  what  basis,  then,  can  an  advance  be 
made  in  the  direction  of  either  of  these  systems  ?  By  a  naked  assump- 
tion which  begs  the  issue,  and  by  nothing  else.  This  advance  the 
Materialist  makes  by  the  assumption  that  knowledge  is  possible  but  in 
its  exterior  form,  or  in  respect  to  '  things  without  us,'  and  is  real  in  this 
form.  This  involves,  on  the  principle  of  identity,  the  validity  of  the 
material  hypothesis  in  all  its  forms  and  deductions.  This  step  the 
Materialist  takes,  we  repeat,  not  by  showing  that  his  hypothesis  has  self- 
evident  validity,  or  is  a  demonstrated  truth,  nor  after  he  has  invalidated 
the  assumption  of  the  Idealist,  but  by  viciously  begging  the  question  at 
issue.  Having  assumed  the  validity  of  his  principle,  he  goes  on  ^nd 
rears  up  the  whole  superstructure  of  his  system. 

As  against  the  Materialist,  the  Idealist  begs  the  question,  not  on 
*  grounds  or  argaments,'  but  by  the  naked  assumption  that  knowledge 
is  possible  only  in  its  interior  form,  and  is  actual  in  that  form.  The  con- 
dition of  valid  knowledge,  he  affirms  without  proof  or  argument,  is  '  a 
synthesis  of  being  and  knowing,'  This  assumption  not  only  begs  the 
question  against  the  Materialist,  but  involves,  on  the  validity  of  a  series 
of  identical  propositions,  the  whole  system  of  Idealism. 

But  here  two  contradictory  systems  present  themselves,  Subjective 
Idealism  and  Pantheism.     Advocates  of  the  former  system  assume  the 


MISCELLANEOUS  TOPICS  AND  SUGGESTIONS.  67 

fact,  that  we  are  conscious  of  *  the  me,*  and  of  nothing  else.  As  but  one 
substance  does  exist,  and  *  the  me  *  is  known,  in  consciousness,  to  exist, 
*  the  me  '  must  be  the  sole  existence  and  principle  of  all  things.  This 
argument,  on  the  authority  of  the  common  consciousness,  has  against  the 
Pantheist  absolute  validity.  We  are  directly  and  immediately  conscious 
of  '  the  me,'  and  in  no  sense  or  form  are  we  thus  conscious  of  the  Infinite 
and  Absolute.  The  Pantheist  gets  over  this  difficulty  by  the  naked 
assumption  which  undeniably  begs  the  question  at  issue  between  hira 
and  the  Subjective  Idealist,  the  assumption  of  'a  special  faculty  of  intui- 
tion,' a  faculty  by  which  the  Infinite  and  Absolute  is  directly  known  as 
the  only  substance,  and  *  the  me '  as  a  development  of  that  one  substance. 
The  Pantheist  does  not  profess  that  his  special  faculty  has  self-evident 
reality.  Nor  does  he  ofiler  any  arguments  to  prove  its  existence  and 
supreme  authority.  This  is  simply  assumed,  and  with  it  is  begged  the 
validity  of  the  whole  system  of  Pantheism.  If  but  one  substance  does 
exist,  and  the  Infinite  and  Absolute,  as  the  substance  and  principle  of  all 
things,  is  directly  and  immediately  perceived  to  be  that  substance,  this 
is  identical  with  all  that  is  in  the  system. 

The  two  systems  just  considered  admit  this  in  common,  that  substance 
is  real.  But  here  another  issue  arises.  The  doctrine  of  substance  is 
denied,  and  that  upon  the  authority  of  the  general  principle  admitted  as 
valid  by  Materialists  and  Idealists  in  common,  that  but  one  principle  of 
all  things  does,  or  can  exist.  Knowledge,  or  thought,  is  real.  This  must 
be  admitted.  Must  not  thought,  then,  be  the  only  reality,  the  real  sub- 
stance and  principle  of  all  things  ?  This  issue  the  Pure  Idealist  begs,  by 
the  assumption  that  the  condition  of  valid  knowledge  is  this,  that  'being 
and  knowing  must  be  one  and  identical.'  This  assumption  involves,  on 
the  principle  of  identity,  the  validity  of  the  system  of  Pure  Idealism 
throughout  All  comes  under  the  vicious  principle  of  begging  the  ques- 
tion. 

When  the  Idealist  comes  to  construct  his  system  in  detail,  the  same 
method  as  before  is  still  pursued.  The  common  assumption  of  the  system 
is,  that  in  external  perception,  the  real  object  perceived  is  not  without, 
but  within  us,  and  that  sensation,  as  an  ideal  or  sensitive  state,  is  that 
object.  Each  system  has  to  account  for  the  existence  or  origination  of 
the  sensation  in  the  one  or  the  other  of  these  forms.  To  account  for  the 
origination  of  this  phenomenon,  Kant  assumed,  or  begged,  the  existence 
of  two  unknowable  entities,  noumena,  and  referred  sensation,  as  an  effect, 
to  the  action  and  reaction  of  these  two  substances  upon  each  other,  as 
causes 

This,  according  to  Fichte,  destroyed  the  trnity  of  science,  which 
demands  that  there  shall  be  but  one  substance,  or  principle,  of  all  things. 
To  account  for  sensation  in  the  one  substance,  *  the  me,'  this  philosopher 

g-2 


68  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

assumed,  that  is,  begged,  the  existence  in  '  the  me '  of  two  distinct  and 
opposite  priaciples — that  of  spontaneous  self-activity  and  expansion,  and 
that  of  certain  *  inexplicable  limitations.'  Of  the  existence  and  action  of 
these  principles  we  have,  as  Fichte  admitted,  no  consciousness.  They 
exist  below,  and  act  prior  to  consciousness,  if  they  exist  and  act  at  all. 
"We  are  conscious  only  of  the  result  of  their  mutual  action  and  reaction, 
that  is,  of  the  sensation  which  they  induce.  It  is  undeniable  that  the 
existence  and  action  of  these  principles  are  simply  legged,  or  assumed,  to 
meet  an  exigency  of  the  system — to  wit,  to  account  for  sensation. 

To  account  for  sensation  and  all  other  mental  operations,  the  Pantheist 
assumes,  or  begs,  for  his  system  the  existence  in  the  Infinite  and  Absolute 
of  two  similar  principles.  For  a  similar  purpose,  the  Pure  Idealist  begs 
for  his  system  the  existence  of  similar  principles  in  pure  thought. 
Nothing  is  proven — all  is  begged  as  the  exigences  of  any  system  require, 
and  always  what  is  begged  is  identical  with  the  deduction  sought  to  be 
reached.  Fichte  begged,  as  the  fundamental  condition  of  the  existence 
of  a  system  of  knowledge,  scientifically  developed,  that  all  the  parts 
must  involve  each  other  on  the  principle  of  absolute  identity.  All  must 
conform  to  the  proposition,  A  is  A.  In  formal  conformity  to  this  principle, 
all  the  forms  of  Idealism  are  developed.  All  the  deductions  are,  in  fact 
and  form,  identical  with  the  basis  assumption.  In  other  words,  none  of 
these  systems  have  any  place  whatever  within  the  circle  of  the  sciences. 
The  axioms,  or  principles,  of  all  the  real  sciences  do  not  imply  the 
existence,  or  character,  of  any  facts  whatever.  Those  principles  imply 
simply  what  will,  and  must,  be  true,  if  facts  of  a  given  character  shall  be 
found  to  exist.  Take,  as  an  example,  the  axiom,  'Things  equal  to  the 
same  things  are  equal  to  one  another.'  This  axiom  has,  in  the  first  place, 
self-evident  validity.  In  the  next  place,  it  determines  nothing  whatever 
about  the  question  what  things  do,  or  do  not  exist.  This  is  true  of  all 
the  principles,  or  axioms,  of  all  the  sciences.  What  should  we  think,  if 
all  the  so-called  sciences  were  constructed  upon  principles,  or  assumptions, 
not  of  self-evident  validity,  and  which  have  not  been,  or  cannot  be,  proven 
true,  but  which,  on  the  naked  principle  of  identity,  imply  all  the  facts 
and  deductions  of  which  said  systems  are  constructed?  We  should 
stultify  ourselves,  if  we  should  call  them  systems  of  real  science.  We  do, 
in  fact  and  form,  stultify  ourselves  when  we  locate  any  of  the  systems  of 
Materialism,  or  Idealism,  within  the  circle  of  real  science.  We  might, 
with  the  same  propriety,  affirm  that  an  individual  who  has  repeated  a 
hundred  times  in  succession  the  proposition,  A  is  A,  has  constructed  a 
system  of  real  science  as  to  call  any  of  the  systems  uuder  consideration 
a  system  of  scienca 

All  that  has  been  said  above  has  a  direct  application  to  the  system  of 
Scepticism.  Its  basis  principle,  that  'all  our  knowledge  is  mere  appearance, 


MISCELLANEOUS  TOPICS  AND  SUGGESTIONS.  69 

and  that  the  realities  existing  behind  all  appearances,  are,  and  ever  must 
be  unknown,'  is,  as  we  have  already  shown,  not  self-evidently  true ;  nor 
is  it  capable  of  being  verified  by  proof.  Yet  that  assumption  is  absolutely 
identical  with  the  final  deduction  of  the  system — to  wit,  that  all  positive 
systems  are  foundationless.  In  other  words.  Scepticism,  in  none  of  its 
forms,  has  any  other  basis  than  a  vicious  assumption  which  begs  all 
questions  at  issue  between  it  and  all  other  systems.  We  shall  have 
frequent  occasion  to  recur  to  the  undeniable  facts  above  presented  and 
elucidated,  as  we  enter  upon  our  future  expositions  and  criticisms. 

The  proper  place  and  influence  op  the  different  Mental  Faculties 
IN  the  Constitution  of  Systems  op  Knowledge. 

It  is  self-evident  that  if  we  would  have  systems  of  science  or  philosophy 
— systems  which  may,  with  any  show  of  truth,  take  rank  as  *  knowledge 
systematized,'  the  pure  intelligence,  unperverted,  and  not  determined  in 
its  proper  activity  by  the  impulsions  of  the  sensibility,  or  will,  must 
furnish  all  the  principles,  facts,  and  deductions  which  constitute  the 
system,  and  must  determine  the  place  and  relations  of  all  the  facts  of  the 
same.  AVill  must  have  place  but  in  determining  attention  to  principles, 
facts,  and  deductions,  and  finally  to  the  proper  place  of  each  fact  in  the 
system,  and  all  for  the  fixed  purpose  of  knowing  truth  as  it  is.  All 
promptings  of  desire  must  be  ignored  and  suppressed  but  those  in  which 
there  is  a  '  cry  after  knoicledge,'  and  '  a  lifting  up  of  the  voice  for  under- 
standing ' — a  cry  through  which  '  wisdom  enters  into  the  heart  and  know- 
ledge is  pleasant  to  the  soul.*  There  must  be  a  fixed  determination  of  will 
that  assumptions,  together  with  mere  opinions  and  conjectures,  shall  have 
no  place  in  the  system,  and  that  there  shall  be  absolute  integrity  in  the 
induction  of  principles  and  facts,  and  in  all  deductions  from  the  same. 
Whatever  judgments  the  Intelligence  gives  forth  as  self-evidently  true, 
these,  and  these  only,  must  have  place  as  principles.  Whatever  the 
Intelligence,  in  its  integrity,  affirms  to  be  real,  must  be  accepted  as  actual 
facts.  And  finally,  whatever  deductions  the  Intelligence  gives  forth  as 
the  necessary  consequents  of  such  principles  and  facts  must  be  rigidly 
accepted  as  trutiis  of  science.  Nothing  but  what  the  Intelligence  gives 
forth  in  the  form  of  necessary  and  intuitive  principles,  actual  facts,  and 
necessary  deductions  from  said  principles  and  facts,  must  have  place  in 
the  system.  Here,  and  here  only,  is  real  integrity  in  scientific  induction 
and  deduction. 

It  is  equally  evident  that  systems  may  be  constructed  in  conformity 
with  other  and  opposite  methods — methods  in  which  principles,  facts,  and 
deductions  shall  be  wholly,  or  for  the  most  part,  determined  by  fiats  of 
will,  or  prompting  of  desire.  A  merchant,  we  will  suppose,  is  about  to 
send  a  cargo  of  goods  from  JSTew  York  to  Liverpool,  and  wishes  to  deter- 


7o  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

mine  the  time  of  their  passage.  He  requires  his  clerk  to  give  the  time, 
and  to  give  it  from  the  following  data  :  Distance  from  New  York  to 
Halifax,  300  miles;  from  thence  to  the  coasts  of  iJ^ewfoundland,  200; 
and  from  thence  to  Liverpool,  500  miles.  Distance  sailed  over,  each  day, 
200  miles.  The  clerk  can  as  readily  give  the  result  from  these  data  as 
from  data  furnished  by  the  most  approved  records  of  facts.  He  informs 
his  employer,  however,  that  the  data  assigned  do  not  accord  with  those 
furnished  by  the  records  referred  to.  *  No  matter,'  replies  the  merchant ; 
'  compel  yourself  to  treat  the  data  furnished  by  these  records  as  nothing 
but  a  prejudice,'  '  innate,  indeed,  and  connatural,  yet  nothing  but  a  pre- 
judice,' and  give  the  deduction  from  the  data  which  I  have  furnished. 
When  you  have  done  so,  call  the  latter  calculations  science,  and  calcula- 
tions as  commonly  made,  forms  of  old  superstition.  The  world  would 
know  at  once  that  if  the  man  is  serious,  he  has  become  demented.  The 
reason  is  obvious.  He  has  determined  his  data,  and  as  a  consequence  his 
deductions,  wholly  by  his  will,  and  not  by  his  intelligence. 

A  system  of  affirmed  world-knowledge  is  before  us,  a  system  commended 
to  our  regard  as  'knowledge  systematized.'  On  examination,  we  find  it 
to  be  constructed  wholly,  not  of  principles  and  facts  furnished  by  the  In- 
telligence when  acting  in  its  pure  integrity,  but  from  will-data — data  in 
which  the  ultimate  deductions  are  all  begged.  We  find  mere  naked 
assumptions  substituted  for  known  principles  of  science,  and  facts  of 
absolute  conscious  intuition  ignored  or  forcibly  '  treated  as  nothing  but  a 
prejudice,'  and  facts  of  false  or  partial  induction  introduced  just  as  the 
exigencies  of  the  system,  and  not  as  the  absolute  dicta  of  the  Intelligence 
require.  What  shall  we  think  of  such  systems  ?  We  must  regard  them 
as  false  systems,  of  course,  and  repudiate  their  deductions  as  we  would 
those  secured  by  the  merchant  referred  to.  We  must  also  judge  of  the 
framers  of  these  systems  as  we  would  of  such  individual.  We  must  affirm 
them  to  be  demented,  or  false  to  moral  integrity,  in  the  sphere  of  scientific 
thought  and  deduction.  We  must  bear  in  mind  that  a  philosopher  may 
be  as  really  dishonest  and  criminal  in  his  study  and  books,  as  the 
merchant  in  his  store,  or  the  politician  in  handling  the  public  treasures. 
The  philosopher  may  be  as  dishonest  and  criminal  in  imposing  upon  the 
public  the  deductions  of  false  science  through  deceptive  will-data,  as  the 
citizen  is  who  imposes  upon  the  community  deceptive  wares,  or  counter- 
feit money.  The  distinction  is  so  manifest  between  assumptions  and 
principles,  and  false  and  valid  inductions  of  facts,  that  without  moral  dis- 
honesty fundamental  errors  in  respect  to  being  and  its  laws,  to  the  soul 
and  its  destiny,  to  moral  principle  and  ultimate  causation  are  hardly 
possible.  The  wide  gulf  which  separates  systems  of  true,  from  those  of 
false,  science  has  been  made  sufficiently  plain,  perhaps,  in  the  above 
presentations.     We  will  now  adduce,  in  further  elucidation  of  the  dia- 


MISCELLANEOUS  TOPICS  AND  SUGGESTIONS.  71 

tinction  under  consideration,  some  palpable  facts  of  actual  experience  in 
this  business  of  world-making. 

Suppose  that  a  so-called  philosopher  requires  his  intelligence  to  con- 
struct a  system  of  world-knowledge  from  the  following  data :  Assumption 
first,  But  one  substance  or  principle  of  all  things  does  exist.  Assumption 
second,  Knowledge  is  possible  only  in  its  subjective  form,  and  is  actual 
in  that  form.  Assumption  third.  Being  and  knowing  are  one  and  iden- 
tical. Give  the  necessary  deduction  from  such  data ;  in  other  words,  give 
us  from  these  data  the  only  possible  system  of  existence,  and  the  implied 
laws  of  the  same.  But  one  answer  can  be  given,  to  wit,  thought  with  its 
inhering  laws  is  real,  and  nothing  else  can  exist.  Our  philosopher  is 
reminded  of  the  fact  that  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  conceive  of  thought 
without  a  thinker,  of  phenomena  without  substance,  and  of  events  with- 
out real  causes.  He  is  also  reminded  of  the  fact  that  the  possibility  of 
knowledge  in  its  exterior  is  just  as  conceivable  as  in  its  subjective  form, 
and  that  we  are  as  absolutely  conscious  of  its  actuality  in  the  former,  as 
we  are  in  the  latter  form.  All  this  is  freely  granted,  replies  our  philo- 
sopher. Yet 'you  must  compel  yourselves  \x>  treaty  \xx.  the  construction 
of  your  system  of  knowledge,  all  such  unavoidable  and  irradicable  intui- 
tions and  convictions  'as  a  prejudice,  innate,  indeed,  and  connatural,  yet 
nothing  but  a  prejudice.'  You  must  construct  your  system  from  the  ex- 
clusive data  furnished.  When  you  have  done  so,  you  must  call  your 
system  the  only  true  science,  and  repudiate  all  opposite  ones  as  the  crea- 
tions of  old  superstition  and  prejudica  You  may  then  regard  yourself  as 
having  an  honourable  place  in  the  realm  of  '  Divine  Philosophy.' 

Suppose,  on  the  other  hand,  that  another  philosopher  requires  his  in- 
telligence to  construct  a  system  from  the  following  data :  Assumption 
first.  But  one  substance  or  principle  of  all  things  does,  or  can,  exist. 
Assumption  second.  Knowledge,  only  in  reference  to  'things  without  us,* 
is  possible,  and  is  actual  in  this  form.  What,  and  what  alone  from  such 
data  is  to  be  regarded  as  real,  and  what  must  be  the  laws  of  its  existence 
and  activity  1  What  especially  must  thought,  feeling,  and  willing  per- 
tain to  as  phenomena)  But  one  answer  can  be  given.  Matter  with  its 
inhering  laws,  and  that  only,  is  real,  and  is  the  exclusive  principle  of  all 
things.  Mental  phenomena  are  nothing  but  facts  of  material  develop- 
ment, and  all  ideas  of  God,  duty,  and  immortality,  are  chimeras.  Our 
philosopher  is  reminded  of  the  fact  that  his  fundamental  assumption  is 
not  a  self-evident  truth,  and  that  it  has  not  been,  and  cannot  be,  verified 
by  proo£  He  is  also  reminded  that  we  are  as  absolutely  conscious  of  the 
possibility  and  reality  of  knowledge  in  its  subjective,  as  in  its  exterior 
form.  *  Granted,' replies  our  philosopher,  'yet  you  must  compel  your- 
selves to  treat,'  all  forms  of  subjective  knowledge,  '  as  a  prejudice,  innate, 
indeed,  and  connatural,  yet  as  nothing  but  a  prejudice.'     You  must  cou- 


72  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

struct  your  theory  of  being  and  its  laws  with  rigid  conformity  to  the  data 
given.  When  you  have  completed  the  superstructure,  you  must  compel 
yourself  to  regard  it  as  'knowledge  systematized,'  and  denounce  all 
opposite  systems  as  illusions.  You  may  then  regard  yourself  as  a  full 
fledged  philosopher. 

One  more  example.  A  philosopher  requires  his  intelligence  to  give 
the  true  theory  of  knowledge  systematized,  and  to  give  the  same  from  the 
following  data:  Assumption — All  our  world-knowledge  is  of  mere  relative 
validity,  mere  appearance  or  illusion,  and  *  the  reality  existing  behind  all 
appearance  is,  and  ever  must  be,  unknown.'  What  is  the  necessary  de- 
duction from  such  data  1  The  absolute  impossibility  of  developing  any 
valid  system  of  being  and  its  laws.  We  remind  our  philosopher  that  his 
assumption  has  none  of  the  characteristics  of  a  principle  in  science,  and 
that  it  cannot  be  verified  as  a  deductive  truth,  it  being  impossible  for  us 
to  be  as  absolutely  assured  of  the  validity  of  any  deduction  from  any 
reasoning  process  wiiich  he  may  adduce  to  prove  his  assumption,  as  we 
are  of  the  reality  of  our  personal  existence,  and  of  that  of  *  things  without 
us.'  All  this  is  true,  our  philosopher  replies;  'yet  you  must  compel 
yourselves  to  treat'  all  your  subjective  and  objective  intuitions  *as 
nothing  but  a  prejudice,  innate,  indeed,  and  connatural,  yet  nothing  but 
a  prejudice.'  You  must  compel  yourself. to  treat,  as  the  sole  truth  of 
science,  the  necessary  deduction  yielded  by  the  data  given. 

Suppose  now  that  our  philosopher,  after  having  afFumed  the  absolute 
validity  of  the  sceptical  hypothesis  as  above  given,  after  having  affirmed 
that  '  matter  and  spirit  are  but  names  for  an  imaginary  substrata  of 
groups  of  natural  phenomena,'  should  then  pledge  himself  to  demonstrate 
to  and  for  us  ^& physical  basis  for  life'  in  all  its  forms — should  then  infer, 
from  such  affirmed  demonstration,  that  all  mental  facts  are  but  forms  of 
material  development — *  molecular  changes  in  protoplasm,  or  the  matter 
of  life' — that  man,  in  his  material  and  mental  structure,  is  constituted 
wholly  of  an  organized  mass  of  living  protoplasm,  which  may  have  been 
developed  out  of  the  dead  protoplasm  of  a  dead  sheep,  "matter"' — that 
*  as  surely  as  every  future  grows  out  of  the  past  and  present,  so  will  the 
physiology  of  the  future  extend  the  realm  of  matter  and  law,  until  it  is 
co-extensive  with  knowledge,  with  feeling,  and  with  action' — that  all 
inquiries  pertaining  to  religion  and  immortality  are  as  vain  as  '  lunar 
politics' — 'that  matter  may  be  regarded  as  a  property  of  thought,'  and 
'  thought  may  be  regarded  as  a  property  of  matter ' — and  finally,  that  '  it 
is  certain  that  we  have  no  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  either  matter  or 
spirit'  When  our  scientist  has  carried  us  through  all  these  labyrinths  of 
contradictory  statements,  what  is  he  in  self-regard,  and  what  is  he  in  the 
regard  of  his  school  of  thinkers  1  A  great  central  light  in  the  high  realm 
of  the  '  New  Philosophy.' 


MISCELLANEOUS  TOPICS  AND  SUGGESTIONS.  73 

No  honest  thinker  will  deny  the  strict  validity  of  the  above  statements 
of  the  exclusive  methods  in  conformity  to  which  all  the  systems  presented 
are  constructed.  What,  then,  are  the  fundamental  characteristics  of  all 
the  principles,  facts,  and  deductions  which  constitute  the  material  and 
form  of  said  systems  ?  Those  principles  and  facts  are  all  undeniably 
given  and  furnished  by  arbitrary  fiats  of  will.  No  other  rational  account 
can  by  any  possibility  be  given  of  the  fixed  methods  of  development 
adopted  and  immutably  adhered  to  in  the  construction  of  these  systems, 
and  consequently  of  the  systems  themselves.  Mere  assumptions  are  sub- 
stituted for  known  principles  of  science  and  conscious  facts ;  facts  of 
innate,  connatural,  unavoidable,  and  irrepressible  intuition  are  ignored, 
or  compulsorily  treated  as  creations  of  prejudice ;  and  a  part  of  real  facts 
are  adduced  just  as  the  exigencies  of  the  system  demand.  What,  then, 
are  these  systems  but  arbitrary  creations  of  will  and  desire,  instead  of 
structures  of  systematized  knowledge,  whose  principles,  facts,  and  deduc- 
tions are  furnished  and  harmonized  by  the  intelligence  ?  We  shall  find, 
in  our  future  examinations  of  actual  systems  of  Philosophy,  that  will  has, 
in  fact,  had  far  more  influence  and  control  in  the  construction  of  most 
systems  than  the  intelligence  has. 

Secret  op  the  Power  of  Scepticism. 
Scepticism,  as  a  mental  state,  is  so  opposite  to  the  instinctive  desires 
and  conscious  wants  of  universal  mind,  and  as  a  form  of  belief  is  so  con- 
tradictory to  all  the  intuitive  convictions  of  the  race,  that  it  would  seem, 
at  first  thought,  that  such  a  system  could  never  gain  influence  with  any 
considerable  portion  of  mankind,  and  especially  with  any  class  of  world- 
thinkers.  All  mankind  have  a  quenchless  thirst  for  knowledge,  and  the 
profession  of  world-thiukers  is  to  furnish  food  for  thought,  to  put  into  the 
hand  of  the  inquirer  the  lamp  of  truth,  and  to  furnish  the  race  with 
'knowledge  systematized.'     Scepticism  professedly  takes  from  the  race 

*  the  key  of  knowledge '  itself,  affirming  that  truth  is  impenetrably  veiled, 
not  only  from  the  unlearned  and  ignorant,  but  from  the  truly  '  wise  and 
prudent' — even  from  those  who  'seek  for  her  as  silver,  and  search  for  her 
as  for  hid  treasures.'  Yet  there  are  two  mental  states — godless  ignorance 
and  learned  pedantry — over  which  this  soulless,  blind,  and  self-induced 
idiotic  system,  this  Philosophy  which  is  adapted  but  to  the  vision  of 

*  Chaos  and  Old  Night,'  has  omnipotent  power.  When  an  ignorant  mind 
has,  for  any  cause,  acquired  an  inward  prejudice  and  repellancy  against 
the  claims  of  morality  and  religion,  there  is  no  sentiment  so  genial  to  the 
mental  state  thus  induced  as  Scepticism — the  sentiment  of  universal  doubt 
— the  sentiment  which  assumes,  at  once,  all  moral  and  religious  thought 
and  inquiry  to  be  fruitless  and  void.  So  when  an  individual  in  whom 
the  organ  of  self-esteem  and  self-vencratiou  is  largely  developed  has  made 


74  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

observations  somewhat  extensive  in  some  one  or  two  of  the  natural 
sciences,  how  genial  to  the  sentiment  of  such  a  mind  is  the  idea  that  he 
now  fully  comprehends,  and  is  as  fully  able  to  expound,  the  problem  of 
universal  being  and  its  laws  !  Nor  is  there  any  highway  so  straight  and 
so  direct  to  the  consciousness  of  this  lofty  pre-eminence  as  that  revealed 
by  the  dogma  of  Scepticism.  Let  an  individual  simply  assume  that  all 
knowledge  is  'exclusively  phenomenal,  and  that  the  reality  existing  be- 
hind all  appearance  is,  and  ever  must  be,  unknown,'  and  he  has,  by  a 
single  stroke,  sundered  'the  Gordian  knot' — universal  being  and  its  laws 
— and  stands  revealed  to  himself  as  the  wisest  of  men,  self-elevated  far 
above  the  low  realm  in  which  grovelled  such  low  thinkers  as  Thales, 
Socrates,  Plato,  Aristotle,  Cicero,  Newton,  Locke,  and  La  Place — self- 
elevated  to  a  place  as  a  fixed  star  among  all  the  world-renowned  world- 
thinkers  '  from  Protagoras  to  Kant,'  and  from  Kant  to  Huxley. 

Nor  is  there  any  path  so  straight  and  direct  to,  at  least,  a  temporary 
notoriety.  If  an  individual  desires  to  be  known  and  talked  about,  he 
need  not  set  fire  to  the  '  Temple  of  the  Great  Goddess  Diana,'  or  discover 
a  new  asteroid.  Let  him,  on  the  other  hand,  magnify  Physiology,  and 
one  or  two  other  kindred  sciences,  and  then  denounce  all  moral  and 
religious  thought  and  inquiry  as  *  Lunar  Politics,'  affirming  that  *  matter 
and  law  have  devoured  spirit  and  spontaneity,'  and  with  these  God, 
duty,  and  immortality.  Let  him  boldly  affirm  that,  *  as  surely  as  every 
future  grows  out  of  the  past  and  present,  so  surely  will  the  physiology 
of  the  future  gradually  extend  the  realm  of  matter  and  law  until  it  is 
co-extensive  with  knowledge,  with  feeling,  and  with  action.'  Such  a 
man  will  not  fail  to  be  talked  about  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic.  Most, 
if  not  all,  will  inwardly  regard  him  as  a  kind  of  moral  and  intellectual 
monster,  and  will  instinctively  tremble  at  his  terrible  temerity.  Yet 
they  have  an  irresistible  curiosity  for  monstrosities,  and  will  go  as  far 
to  see  and  hear  such  a  man  as  they  would  to  see  another  individual  whose 
small  skeleton  is  covered  with  five  or  six  hundred  pounds  of  fat. 

But  this  sentiment  has,  at  the  present  time,  not  a  little  influence 
even  among  thoughtful  minds,  both  in  America  and  Great  Britain.  The 
argument,  as  far  as  Theism  and  Christianity  are  concerned,  is  claimed, 
with  much  show  of  truth,  to  be  with  Messrs,  Mill,  Spencer,  and  their 
associates.  Where  lies  the  secret  of  the  intellectual  power  of  Scepticism 
at  the  present  time  1  The  deductions  of  the  individuals  above  referred  to 
are  to  a  great  extent  ex  concesis.  They  argue  mainly  from  premises  fur- 
nished them  and  admitted  as  valid  by  their  opponents.  It  is  admitted 
by  leading  theologians,  and  definitely  taught  in  not  a  few  of  our  leading 
institutions,  that  our  world-knowledge  has,  in  all  fundamental  respects, 
only  a  relative,  and  not  a  real  validity ;  that  our  necessary  and  theistic 
ideas  have  in  them  the  elements  of  self-contradiction,  and,  therefore,  do 


MISCELLANEOUS  TOPICS  AND  SUGGESTIONS.  7S 

not  and  cannot  represent  their  objects  as  they  are  in  theaselves.  Messrs. 
Mill  and  Spencer  simply  deduce  from  these  conceded  principles  and  facts 
the  conclusions  to  which  said  principles  and  facts  undeniably  conduct  us, 
and  present  their  deductions  to  the  world  as  truths  of  science.  As  far 
as  their  deductions  are  concerned,  these  men  are  undeniably  right.  If 
our  world-knowledge  has  not  a  real,  but  only  a  relative  validity,  where  is 
our  basis  for  any  positive  deductions  on  any  subject  1  If  we  do  not  and 
cannot  know  *  the  things  that  are  made,'  or  whether  they  are  or  are  not 
created  objects  at  all,  what  can  we  know  about  the  ultimate  cause  of  all 
things  ?  If  all  our  necessary  and  theistic  ideas  are,  in  fact,  self-contra- 
dictory, we  are  bound,  in  logical  consistency,  to  reject  them  as  absurd. 
If  all  positive  conceptions  have  these  characteristics,  we  are  bound  to 
repudiate  the  whole  of  them  as  invalid  or  false.  When  we  yield  to  the 
Sceptic,  or  Anti-Theist,  these  premises,  we  convict  ourselves  of  logical 
dishonesty  if  we  deny  his  deductions.  Wherein  lies  the  error  of  the 
Sceptic  1  It  lies  here  :  in  putting  forth  these  deductions,  not  as  follow- 
ing from  the  principles  and  facts  under  consideration,  but  in  imposing 
said  deductions  upon  the  world  as  truths  of  science.  The  relation  of 
necessary  connection  between  given  principles  and  the  conclusion  de- 
duced from  them  is  no  proof  at  all  that  that  conclusion  is  a  truth  of 
science.  Such  proof  depends  upon  the  validity  of  the  premises.  The 
strength  of  Scepticism  over  thoughtful  minds  lies  in  the  necessary  con- 
nection between  his  deductions  and  his  premises,  premises  admitted  to 
be  correct.  The  weakness  of  the  system  lies  in  the  falseness  of  its 
premises.  When  assaulted  here,  Scepticism  is  the  perfection  of  im- 
potency.  Here  lies  the  fundamental  error  of  the  friends  of  truth,  the 
conceding  to  unbelief  all  the  grounds  she  asks  to  sustain  her  deductions. 

Thk  Secbrt  op  the  Power  of  Systematized  Thought,  and  the  only 
Proper  Meihod  of  Examining  such  Systems. 

Almost  any  form  of  thought,  when  presented  in  a  systematized  form,  a 
form  in  which  all  the  deductions  have  a  fixed  logical  connection  with  the 
premises  laid  down,  and  in  which  all  the  constituent  elements  appear  as 
essential  parts  of  a  grandly  harmonized  whole,  thought  thus  systematized, 
whatever  its  intrinsic  character,  is  almost  certain  to  have  weight  and 
power  with  multitudes  of  thinkers  ;  while  truth,  of  the  greatest  moment 
in  itself,  but  presented  in  a  confused  and  fragmentary  forfn,  is  very  likely 
to  be  rejected.  Many  reasons  might  be  assigned  for  such  a  fact,  reasons 
not  altogether  dishonourable  to  human  nature.  We  naturally  delight  in 
systematized  order,  and  in  logical  consecutiveness  of  thought.  Most  of 
our  important  forms  of  belief  also  are  deductive  rather  than  intuitive. 
Hence  it  is  that  when  a  deduction  has  a  necessary  connection  with  the 
premises  presented,  and  especially  when  such  deduction  constitutes  an 


76  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

essential  part  of  a  harmoniously  systematized  form  of  thought,  we  naturally 
accept  it  as  a  truth  of  science,  and  that  without  inquiry  into  the  founda- 
tion on  which  said  deduction  is  based.  Here  lies  one  of  the  main  secrets 
of  the  power  of  false  science  in  all  its  forms.  It  most  commonly  com- 
mends itself  to  the  human  mind  as  a  harmoniously  systematized  whole, 
all  the  parts  being  logically  connected  together  by  bands  of  resistless 
strength.  Any  deduction  having  such  connections  almost  forces  belief. 
If  refutation  is  attempted  by  an  attack  upon  the  deduction  itself,  or  by 
an  endeavour  to  break  its  logical  connection  with  the  premises  on  which 
it  rests,  we  are  almost  sure  of  an  inglorious  defeat.  The  reason  is  that 
we  attack  error  just  where  its  power  is  often  omnipotent.  On  the  other 
hand,  when  we  descend  to  a  rigid  examination  of  the  essential  character 
of  the  jprinciples  and  facts  on  which  the  deductions  of  false  science  repose, 
we  shall  almost  invariably  find  absolute  refutation  to  be  the  easiest  thing 
imaginable,  and  shall  as  readily  render  the  advocates  of  error  ashamed  of 
their  own  logic. 

We  have  here  not  only  indicated  the  grand  secret  of  the  power  of  the 
deductions  of  false  science,  but  have  as  clearly  suggested  the  almost 
exclusive  method  of  correct  examination  of  such  systems,  and  of  refuting 
their  seductive  deductions.  Systematized  error  should  always  be  primarily 
examined  with  reference  to  iJie  nature  of  its  basis  principles  and  essential 
facts.  Here  lies  the  secret,  not  of  its  strength,  but  of  its  weakness. 
Nothing  can  be  more  imbecile  than  error  when  thus  assaulted.  Nothing 
has  greater  strength  than  many  of  the  most  pernicious  forms  of  error  when 
assaulted,  as  they  too  commonly  are,  by  direct  attacks  upon  the  character 
of  its  deductions,  their  connection  especially  with  the  assumed  principles 
and  facts  on  which  said  deductions  are  based.  Systematized  error  almost 
always  reposes  upon  mere  assumptions  instead  of  valid  scientific  principles, 
or  a  partial  or  false  induction  of  facts,  or  upon  both  combined.  In  almost 
all  instances  there  is  a  necessary  connection  between  the  final  deductions 
and  the  principles  and  facts  referred  to. 

When  we  contemplate  the  varied  systems  of  Materialism  aad  Idealism, 
as  developed  by  the  great  thinkers  of  the  present  and  past  ages,  what 
imposing  superstructures  rise  up  before  us  1  What  perfection  of  logic 
commends  itself  to  our  regard,  as  far  as  connection  between  assumed 
principles  and  facts,  and  proximate  and  remote  deductions,  are  concerned  ? 
In  such  system?  there  is  a  scientifically  determined  place  for  every  part, 
and  every  part  is  in  its  place.  How  can  such  systems  be  scientifically 
examined  and  refuted]  By  one  method  almost  exclusively,  that  which 
we  have  adopted — to  wit,  a  fundamental  examination  and  exposure  of 
their  false  basis  principles  and  essential  facts.  In  very  many,  and  perhaps 
a  majority  of,  instances  refutation  of  these  systems  has  been  attempted  in 
connection  with  a  distinct  admission  of  the  validity  of  the  assumptions  on 


MISCELLANEOUS  TOPICS  AND  SUGGESTIONS.  77 

which,  as  principles  and  facts,  the  deductions  of  these  systems  are  based, 
an  attempt  in  which  an  inglorious  defeat  is  inevitable.  Others  assault 
the  deductions  of  these  systems  while  they  wholly  ignore  all  examination 
of  the  assumed  principles  and  facts  from  which  these  deductions  are 
drawn — assaults,  of  course,  just  as  void  of  consequence  as  the  former.  If 
these  systems  are  based  upon  valid  principles,  and  a  scientific  induction 
of  facts,  we  involve  ourselves  in  the  just  charge  of  logical  infidelity  if 
we  do  not  grant  their  entire  deductions.  A  rigid  examination  of  the 
assumed  principles  and  facts  on  which  these  systems  are  founded,  on  the 
other  hand,  absolutely  evinces  that  they  are  mere  fictions  of  a  crazy 
philosophy. 

The  True  Philosopher  and  Pedant  distinguished. 

Sir  Isaac  Ifewton  remarked  that  the  real  difference  between  himself 
and  the  world  around  him  appeared  to  him  to  be  mainly  of  this  character. 
All  were  standing  together  upon  the  shore  of  an  ocean,  as  yet  unfathomed 
and  untraversed.  He  had  gathered  a  larger  number  of  bright  and  shining 
pebbles  than  the  rest,  while  he  was  as  ignorant  as  his  associates  of  the 
chief  mysteries  of  that  unfathomed  and  untraversed  ocean  that  lay  out 
before  them.  Himself,  as  well  as  all  around  him,  was  yet  but  a  child  in 
knowledge.  Here  towers  up  before  us  the  true  philosopher.  Such  an 
individual  has  an  omnipresent  apprehension  of  his  limited  knowledge  and 
liability  to  error.  In  the  construction  of  systems  of  knowledge,  he  is  very 
cautious  and  careful  in  laying  down  principles  and  in  the  induction  of 
facts,  and  equally  so  in  his  deductions  from  said  principles  and  facts. 
He  never  sets  forth  mere  assumptions,  opinions,  or  conjectures,  as  principles, 
facts,  or  deductions  in  science.  If  he  puts  forth  any  of  these,  he  claims 
for  them  no  positive  authority  whatever.  On  the  other  hand,  he  charac- 
terizes them  as  mere  assumptions,  opinions,  or  conjectures.  When  he 
has  thoroughly  explored  any  one  sphere  of  thought  and  inquiry,  he  is 
very  modest  in  the  expression  of  opinions  in  respect  to  the  great  truths 
which  lie  hid  in  mines  which  he  has  not  explored,  and  never  sets  up  such 
opinions  as  truths  of  science.  Hence  the  deductions  of  such  men  have 
permanent  weight  with  mankind,  while  their  mere  opinions,  though 
respected,  are  never  cited  as  of  sovereign  authority.  Such  is  the  divine 
character  and  mission  of  the  true  philosopher. 

What,  then,  is  the  pedant  in  science  as  distinguished  from  the  true 
philosopher  1  The  former  having  acquainted  himself  more  or  less  perfectly 
with  the  problems  of  one  or  more  of  the  sciences,  the  natural  sciences 
particularly,  at  once  apprehends  himself  as  having  attained  to  a  full 
knowledge  of  universal  being  and  its  laws,  particularly  in  respect  to  all 
problems  pertaining  to  matter,  spirit,  time,  space,  God,  duty,  and  immor- 
tality.    His  opinions  on  all  these  infinite  themes  are  set  forth  as  immutable 


78  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

truths  of  science.  Has  he  not  profoundly  studied  ii  dead  man's  brains  1 
Can  he  not  name  every  bone  in  the  skeleton  of  the  iguanadon,  the  maga- 
therion,  and  the  monkey  by  whom,  as  he  imagines,  man  was  begotten  ? 
Has  he  not  looked  through  our  largest  telescopes  and  most  powerful 
microscopes  ?  Can  he  not  tell  us  how  many  lenses  there  are  in  the  eye 
uf  the  common  fly  %  Is  he  not  consequently  possessed  of  '  all  wisdom 
and  all  knowledge'?  Does  he  not  know  that  the  idea  that  creation  was 
originated  by  an  infinite  and  perfect  mind  is  '  the  carpenter  theory ' — that 
*  it  is  possible  that  there  is  a  mode  of  being  as  much  transcending  intel- 
ligence and  will  as  these  transcend  mechanical  motion  ;'  that  'the  religious 
sentiment  in  man  must  ever  continue  to  occupy  itself  with  a  universal 
causal  agent  posited  as  not  to  be  known  at  all ;'  that  matter  alone  is  real, 
and  that  all  events,  thought,  feeling,  and  voluntary  determination  included 
are  the  results  of  material  organization  ;  that  all  known  events  are  the 
results  of  the  counter-agency  of  two  unknown  and  unknowable  entities 
exiftiug  and  acting  nowhere  and  in  no  time,  space  and  time  being  only 
laws  of  thought ;  that  *  the  I  myself  I '  alone  is  real ;  that  the  Infinite 
and  Absolute  is  the  exclusive  existing  substance  and  principle  of  all 
things ;  that  being  and  thought  are  absolutely  one  and  identical ;  that 
'  vice  and  crime  are  normal  states  of  human  nature ;'  that  *  the  inmates 
of  our  prisons  and  brothels  are  advancing  toward  eternal  life;'  that  tcue 
science  '  places  our  feet  upon  the  first  rung  of  a  ladder  which  is  the 
reverse  of  Jacob's,  and  leads  to  the  antipodes  of  heaven,'  that  is,  down  to 
the  abyss  of  annihilation ;  that  matter  is  a  form  of  thought,  and  that 
thoughts  *  are  the  expression  of  molecular  changes  in  the  matter  of  life' — 
in  short,  that  the  same  thing  can,  in  the  same  moment,  exist  and  not 
exist  1  One  great  central  form  of  knowledge  such  philosophers  appear 
not  to  have  acquired — the  undeniable  fact  that,  in  the  sphere  of  scientific 
thought,  they  themselves  are  pedants. 

When,  should  the  Deductions  and  Opinions  of  Philosophers  have  Weight 

with  us  t 

A  very  important  question  here  arises — to  wit,  when  should  the  deduc- 
tions and  opinions  of  philosophers  have  weight  with  us  1  Their  deductions 
should  have  weight  when,  and  only  when,  they  are  visibly  deduced,  as 
necessary  consequences,  not  from  assumptions,  or  partial,  or  false,  inductions 
of  facts,  but  from  necessary  principles,  and  a  full  and  real  induction  of 
knowable  and  known  facts.  Here  thinkers  should  be  held  to  the  strictest 
account.  Their  opinions  should  have  weight  when,  and  only  when,  they 
lie  in  the  lino  of  known  truths,  and  are  rendered  undeniably  probable  by 
facts  already  ascertained. 

"When,  on  the  other  hand,  a  so-called  philosopher  requires  our  assent 
to  dogmas  based  upon  mere  assumptions,  or  partial,  or  false,  inductions  of 


MISCELLANEOUS  TOPICS  AND  SUGGESTIONS.  79 

facts — when  he  sets  forth  mere  opinions  as  truths  of  science — and  espe- 
cially when  he  passes  beyond  his  proper  sphere  of  thought  and  inquiry, 
and  on  thu  basis  of  a  reputation  previously  acquired,  imposes  his  apinions 
upon  the  world  as  deductions  of  science,  such  thinkers  deserve,  and  should 
receive,  the  reprobation  of  the  universe.  If  an  individual,  for  example, 
who  has  had  great  experience  iu  respect  to  certain  metals,  first  judging 
their  weight  from  sight,  and  then  correcting  such  judgments  by  the  deci- 
sion of  the  scales,  should  tell  us  that  he  believed  that  a  given  mass  would 
weigh  about  so  much,  his  opinion,  though  not  infallible,  should  have 
great  weight  with  us.  Suppose,  now,  that  a  mass  of  matter  is  before  us, 
a  mass  of  a  kind  of  which  he  has  no  knowledge  whatever,  and  that  he 
should,  on  the  ground  of  his  experience  of  known  substances,  obtrude 
upon  us,  as  truths  of  science,  his  opinions  about  the  weight  of  this  object. 
If  we  should  judge  wisely,  we  should  say  that  the  period  of  his  inane 
pedantry  had  arrived.  So  when  individuals,  on  the  ground  of  their  attain- 
ments in  the  science  of  chemistry,  physiology,  or  anatomy,  and  other 
kindred  sciences,  begin  to  dogmatize  about  the  agency  of  God  in  nature, 
about  great  problems  in  the  sphere  of  metaphysics,  revelation,  or  theology, 
their  opinions  should  have  no  more  weight  with  us  than  those  of  mere 
children,  or  savages.  If  these  men,  in  the  true  and  proper  sense  of  the 
word,  were  scientists,  they  would  never  dogmatize  anywhere,  especially  in 
spheres  of  thought  and  inquiry  which  they  have  never  traversed. 

Prudential  Considerations. 
Idealists,  Materialists,  and  Sceptics,  all  in  common,  in  law,  in  politics, 
in  history,  in  all  experimental  sciences,  and,  in  fact,  in  all  civil  and  social 
questions  of  general  and  everyday  life,  religion  only  excepted,  ad  upon 
the  exclusive  postulate,  that  Realism,  in  all  its  principles  and  deductions, 
is  absolutely  true,  and  all  opposite  principles  and  deductions  are  utterly 
false.  The  Pure  Idealist,  for  example,  while  he  absolutely  denies  the 
existence  of  all  things  without  the  circle  of  pure  thought,  is  just  as 
anxious  for  his  breakfast,  is  as  indignant  at  fancied  wrongs  from  non-real 
beings  around,  as  prompt  to  appeal  to  non-real  society  for  the  protection 
of  unreal  rights,  and  as  anxious  about  his  reputation  among  men  whom 
he  holds  not  to  exist  at  all,  as  any  Eealist  in  existence.  All  is  practically 
real,  and  is  treated  as  such,  until  we  enter  the  single  sphere  of  religious 
thought  and  activity.  "Why  this  solitary  exception  in  the  whole  range  of 
human  thought  and  action  ?  Religious  thought  and  activity  is  as  im- 
mutable a  demand  of  our  moral  and  spiritual  nature,  as  is  any  other  that 
can  be  designated.  Why  are  the  facts,  principles,  and  deductions  of 
Realism,  all  with  this  one  single  exception,  regarded  and  treated  as 
absolute  verities  1  We  leave  this  question  for  the  thoughtful  considera- 
tion of  every  prudent  and  reflective  mind. 


8o  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY, 

Plan  of  our  Future  Inquiries. 
We  have  now  completed  our  preliminary  discussions,  all  of  which  will 
hereafter  be  found  necessary  and  conducive  to  our  great  purpose — an 
exposition,  elucidation,  and  criticism,  of  the  various  systems  of  Philo- 
sophy which  have  hitherto  occupied  the  attention  of  the  thoughtful 
portion  of  our  race.  In  the  systems  of  Oriental  Philosophy,  we  find  the 
original  types,  as  well  as  the  sources,  of  all  other  systems  which  have 
since  arisen,  the  sceptical  and  proper  theistic  forms  excepted.  We  shall, 
therefore,  first  of  all,  examine  these  oriental  systems  in  the  order  of  their 
apparent  origination — to  wit,  the  Hindu,  the  Buddhist,  the  Chinese,  the 
Persian,  and  the  Egyptian  systems.  We  shall  then  consider  Philosophy, 
as  developed  in  successive  ages,  by  the  Grecian  mind.  Having  presented 
the  varied  forms  of  philosophic  thought  which  prevailed  during  the  early 
centuries  of  the  Christian  era,  and  through  the  Middle  Ages,  we  shall 
devote  special  attention  to  what  is  properly  denominated  Modern  Philo- 
Sophy. 


PART  I. 

THE    ORIENTAL    PHILOSOPHY. 
CHAPTER  I. 

THE    HINDU    PHILOSOPHY. 

Sources  op  this  Philosophy, 

All  forms  of  the  Hindu  Philosophy  are  professedly  drawn  from  the  sacred 
books  of  the  Hindu  people — books  denominated  '  Vedas,'  a  Sanscrit  form 
of  the  word  vidya,  which  means  science,  or  law.  The  original  compilation 
of  these  books  is  attributed  by  the  legends  of  the  Hindus  to  an  individual 
named  Vyasa.  The  Vedas  are  distributed  into  four  books  :  the  Eig-Veda, 
which  is  constituted  of  prayers  and  hymns  in  verse ;  Tadjour-Veda,  of 
prayers  in  prose ;  the  Saraa-Veda,  of  prayers  to  be  chanted ;  and  the 
Atharvun,  of  liturgical  formulas. 

In  addition  to  the  Vedas,  there  are  three  other  works :  the  Pouranas, 
comprised  in  eighteen  poetical  productions,  designed  to  reveal  and  eluci- 
date the  doctrine  of  a  mythological  Theogony  and  Cosmogony;  the 
Rawayan,  which  contains  a  history  of  the  exploits  of  the  gods;  and, 
lastly,  Manava-Daharma-Shaster,  which  contain  a  collection  of  the  laws  of 
Menu.  The  special  doctrines  of  the  later  books  of  the  Hindus  are  pro- 
fessedly drawn,  for  the  most  part,  from  the  Vedas. 

The  productions  last  referred  to  are  divided  into  three  classes :  the 
Orthodox,  or  those  fully  conformed  to  the  Vedas ;  the  Semi-orthodox,  or 
those  conformed  in  part,  and  in  part  not  conformed,  to  the  Vedas ;  and 
the  Heterodox,  or  those  totally  opposed  to  the  Vedas.  These  are  all,  in 
fact  and  form,  philosophical  systems,  and  their  elucidation  falls  directly 
within  the  proper  sphere  and  aim  of  the  present  Treatise.  We  shall  con- 
sidei  them  in  the  order  above  stated. 

6 


82  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


SECTION  L 

EXPOSITION  OF  THE  GENERAL  DOCTRINE  OP  THE  VEDAS. 

As  preparatory  to  a  distinct  understanding  of  these  systems,  we  would, 
first  of  all,  direct  attention  to  the  general  doctrine  of  the  Vedas,  from 
which  all  these  systems,  as  we  have  already  stated,  are  professedly  de- 
rived. The  best  exposition  which  we  have  yet  met  with  of  this  doctrine 
is  contained  in  the  following  extract  from  a  work  entitled  '  An  Epitome 
of  the  History  of  Philosophy,'  a  work  translated  from  the  French  by 
Professor  C.  S.  Henry,  D.D.,  and  published  by  the  Harpers  in  1842.  Our 
knowledge  of  the  Hindu  Philosophy  has  been  derived  primarily  from  this 
work,  secondarily  from  special  treatises  on  the  Hindu  religion  and  Philo- 
sophy, and  lastly  from  intelligent  missionaries  who  have  spent  many  years 
in  that  country.  As  all  the  sources  of  information  to  which  we  have  re- 
ferred perfectly  agree  in  regard  to  the  Hindu  systems  of  Philosophy,  the 
reader  may  safely  rely  upon  the  correctness  of  the  expositions  which  we 
shall  give  of  these  systems.  Let  us  now  attend  to  the  exposition  of  the 
general  doctrine  of  the  Vedas. 

*  1.  Brahm  existed  eternally — the  first  substance — infinite — the  pure 
unity  He  existed  in  luminous  shadows — shadows,  because  Brahm  was  a 
being  indeterminate,  in  whom  nothing  distinct  had  yet  appeared  ;  but 
these  shadows  were  luminous,  because  being  in  itself  is  light.  Brahm  is 
represented  also  as  originally  plunged  in  a  divine  slumber,  because  the 
creative  energy,  as  yet  inactive,  was,  as  it  were,  asleep. 

'2.  When  he  came  out  of  this  slumber,  Brahm,  the  indeterminate 
being  of  the  neuter  gender,  became  the  creative  power  Brahma,  of  the 
masculine  gender.  Brahm  became  also  the  light,  determinate  intelligence, 
and  pronounced  the  fruitful  word  ("  I  am")  which  preceded  all  creation. 

'3.  There  came  forth  besides,  from  the  bosom  of  Brahm,  the  Trimourti : 
Brahma,  the  creator;  Vishnu,  the  preserver  of  forms;  and  Seeva,  the 
destroyer  of  forms,  who,  by  this  very  destruction,  causes  the  return  of 
beings  to  unity,  and  their  re-entrance  into  Brahm.  But  the  Trimourti 
does  not  develop  itself  in  Brahm  until  he  has  produced  another  principle, 
Maya,  of  which  it  is  now  necessary  to  speak. 

'  4.  In  Brahm  there  was  originally  existent  Swada,  or  the  golden  womb, 
the  receptacle  of  all  the  types  of  things,  when  he  produced  Maya 
{mailer  or  illusion),  the  source  of  all  phenomena,  and  by  means  of  which 
individual  existences  made  their  appearance.  Maya  existed  at  first  as  a 
liquid  element,  the  primitive  water,  which  in  itself  has  no  particular  form. 
In  Maya  reside  three  qualities — goodness,  impurity,  obscurity. 


EXPOSITION  OF  THE  GENERAL  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  VEDAS.    83 

*  5.  From  the  union  of  Brahm,  which  contained  the  types  of  all  things, 
with  Maya,  the  principle  of  individualization,  and  under  the  influence  of 
the  three  qualities,  resulted  the  whole  creation.  But  the  universe  existed 
at  first  in  two  original  productions,  which  were,  so  to  say,  the  two  great 
germs  of  it  These  were :  Marhabhouta,  which  is  the  condensation  of  all 
souls,  all  subtle  elements ;  and  Pradjapati,  which  is  the  condensation  of 
all  the  gross  elements. 

'  6.  From  Pradjapati,  combined  with  Marhabhouta,  sprang  all  the 
genii,  and  the  human  race  in  particular,  Pradjabhouta  was  thus  the 
primitive  man,  who,  dividing  himself  into  two,  produced  man  and 
woman. 

*  7.  Human  souls  are  subject,  as  also  the  genii  themselves,  to  the 
universal  law  of  transmigration,  which  consists  in  passing  successively 
into  bodies  more  or  less  perfect,  before  being  finally  reunited  to  the 
great  soul,  Atma.  The  object  of  religion  is  to  procure  more  favourable 
transmigrations,  or  to  abridge  the  duration  of  them,  or  to  secure  even  a 
complete  exemption  from  them,  provided  one  has  followed  with  perfect 
fidelity  the  prescriptions  of  the  Vedas.  The  reunion  of  the  soul  with 
Atma  constitutes  its  final  salvation. 

*  We  observe  here,  once  for  all,  that  the  doctrine  of  transmigration  is 
common  to  all  the  philosophical  schools  of  India,  of  which  we  are  to  give 
an  exposition.  Each  school  has  for  its  object  to  furnish,  by  its  teachings, 
means  of  deliverance  from  the  necessity  of  transmigration.* 

General  Eeflections  on  the  Hindu  Doctrink 
1.  The  reader  will  bear  in  mind  that  the  Vedas  are  received  by"  the 
Hindu  people,  not  as  original  productions,  but  as  a  compilation  of  pre- 
viously existing  forms  of  belief,  the  name  of  the  compiler  being  known. 
Four  important  questions  here  arise,  to  wit :  Are  these  primordial  beliefs 
correctly  represented  in  these  books  ?  Were  not  those  beliefs,  on  the 
other  hand,  corrupted  by  the  compiler,  and  moulded  anew  iu  conformity 
with  newly  developed  ideas  ?  Again,  have  not  the  ancient  books  them- 
selves been  interpolated  by  the  Brahmins  I  Finally,  were  not  these  books, 
a.s  corrupted  and  interpolated,  adopted  in  their  revised  forms,  and  in 
these  forms  imposed  by  the  civil  authorities  upon  the  people  1  Caste, 
which  universally  prevails,  and  that  as  a  part  of  the  religion  as  well  as 
the  civil  organization,  was  not  a  primordial,  but  wholly  a  new  and  forced 
state  of  society.  Was  not  the  Hindu  faith  itself  similarly  reorganized  and 
forced  upon  the  people?  When  we  contemplate  Hindu  society  as  it 
existed  prior  to  its  being  disorganized  by  foreign  invasion,  we  find  not 
only  its  religious,  but  domestic  and  civil  organization  all  existing  as  parts 
of  a  perfectly  systematized  whole.  Since  the  origin  of  the  race,  no  statt- 
of  society  has  been  so  completely  organized  throughout,  in  all  departments 

6—2 


84  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

of  donr^stic,  social,  civil,  and  religious  life,  as  obtained  among  this  one 
people  \  nor  has  any  organization  ever  existed  so  unlike  the  primitive 
condition  of  mankind.  Shall  we  not  suppose  that  the  same  ideal,  which 
thus  transformed  the  state  throughout,  imparted  a  similar  transformation 
to  the  pre-existing  religious  faith  1  No  other  hypothesis  has  the  remotest 
form  of  probability  in  its  favour. 

Events  which  have  recently  transpired  in  India  render  this  hypothesis 
nearly,  or  quite,  demonstrably  evident.  There  has  arisen  there  a  class  of 
men  of  the  highest  learning  and  talents  who,  by  an  appeal  to  historic 
facts,  are  confounding  the  Brahmins,  with  proof  adduced,  that  the  Vedas 
in  their  present  forms  are  not  only  corruptions  of  the  original  faith  of 
the  people,  but  of  the  same  books  as  originally  written.  These  men 
present  the  most  weighty  proof  of  the  fact,  that  the  original  faith  of  this 
people  was  a  pure  Theism  which  wholly  excluded  the  doctrine  of  Poly- 
theism, a  Theism  which  includes  the  idea  of  a  personal  God,  a  creation 
proper,  in  opposition  to  that  of  origination  by  emanation,  of  man  as  a 
personal  moral  agent  destined  to  a  retributive  immortal  existence  after 
death.  Such,  these  men  also  show,  were  the  teachings  of  the  Vedas,  as 
they  originally  existed.  This  important  fact  we  shall  have  occasion  to 
recur  to  again,  when  we  come  to  a  consideration  of  the  question,  "What 
was,  IN  FACT,  the  primitive  religious  faith  of  the  race  ?  The  conclusion 
to  which  we  have  arrived  upon  this  subject  is  further  confirmed  by  what 
appears  in  the  Hindu  writings  themselves.  The  'Bhaghavat-Geeta,'  one  of 
the  poems  of  Vyasa,  the  compiler  of  the  Vedas,  a  poem  of  which  a  Latin 
translation  was  given  by  Schlegel,  has,  in  the  language  of  the  authors  of 
the  epitome  referred  to  above,  *  developed  the  system  (of  Pantheism)  in 
all  its  metaphysical  strictness,  and  in  its  principal  moral  consequences. 
Having  taken  the  ground  that  the  Infinite  is  the  sole  existence,  and  con- 
sequently the  only  being  that  wills  and  acts,  or,  rather,  seems  to  act,  the 
author  of  the'  "  Bhaghavat-Geeta  "  infers  not  only  the  uselessness  of  works, 
but  their  absolute  iudiflference,  or  the  nullity  of  all  distinctions  between 
virtue  and  vice.'  Now,  Pantheism  is  not  a  primitive  form,  but  one  of  the 
latest  forms,  of  human  thought.  We  have  no  evidence,  then,  but  positive 
proof  to  the  contrary,  that  the  Vedas  contain  a  correct  compilation  of  the 
pre-existing  religious  faith  of  the  Hindu  people. 

2.  In  none  of  these  writings  is  there  an  attempt  to  iprove  the  existence, 
or  attributes,  of  Brahm,  except  what  is  contained  in  the  idea  of  Brahm 
as  tLj  sole  existence.  If  there  existed  out  of  Brahm,  say  the  Hindu 
philosophers,  realities,  manifold,  limited,  compounded,  they  must  have 
been  produced  by  Brahm.  But  the  production  of  them  would  be  impos- 
sible, except  so  far  as  Brahm  possessed  in  himself  the  real  principle  of 
imperfection,  limitation,  multiplicity — things  which  are  all  repugnant  to 
his  very  existencei.     The  doctriue  of  Brahm  is  simply  assumed,  as  a  trut^ 


EXPOSITION  OF  THE  GENERAL  DOCTRINE  OF  THE   VEDAS.     85 


eelf-afiirraed,  and  with  it  the  assumption  that  but  one  substance,  or  prin- 
ciple of  all  things,  exists.  A  missionary,  returned  some  time  since  from 
India,  admitted  himself  to  have  been  convinced,  by  means  of  his  inter- 
course with  those  learned  men,  of  the  truth  of  the  assumption  last 
designated.  The  doctrine  of  Brahm,  with  that  of  but  one  substance  or 
principle  of  all  things,  is  assumed  as  a  self-evident  principle  of  science,  and 
as  such,  is  laid  at  the  basis  of  the  whole  superstructure  of  the  Hindu 
religion.  Nothing  is  proven.  All  is  begged  by  the  fundamental  assump- 
tions under  consideration. 

3.  In  Hinduism  we  have  a  religion  determined  in  all  its  parts,  and 
systematized,  by  Philosophy.  Hence,  in  the  construction  of  that  religion, 
there  is  system  throughout.  Philosophy  not  only  determines  the 
religion,  but  itself  becomes  a  fundamental  element  of  the  same.  It  can 
hardly  be  said  of  the  learned  Hindu,  that  *  he  worships  he  knows  not 
what.*  He  not  only  knows  what  he  worships,  but  the  why  also,  and 
that  for  reasons,  not  only  perfectly  satisfactory  to  himself,  but  equally  so 
to  the  people,  reasons,  also,  which  impart  to  the  non-worshipper  even  the 
highest  conceivable  sacredness  with  the  masses  around  V  \.  The  appre- 
hension of  his,  the  non-worshipper's,  curse  is  a  matter  of  greater  dread 
than  is  that  of  any  of  the  gods  whom  they  worship.  The  gods,  as  well 
as  men,  are  considered  subject  to  his  blighting  curse,  and,  at  will,  he  im- 
precates it  upon  whom  he  pleases.  He  never  labours,  and  never  asks  a 
gift,  nor  expresses  thanks  for  the  gifts  lavished  upon  him.  When  he 
seats  himself  in  a  public  place,  the  people  lavish  upon  him  their  choicest 
treasures  for  no  other  reason  than  to  avoid  his  blighting  curse. 

Those  who  worship,  on  the  other  hand,  who  make  pilgrimages,  wash 
in  the  Ganges,  or  do  any  form  of  religious  service,  do  it  for  specified  reasons, 
not  only  escaping  from  evils,  the  averting  the  wrath  or  the  securing  of 
the  favour  of  the  gods,  but  above  all,  the  procurement  of  favourable 
exemption  from  many  transmigrations,  that  the  soul,  emancipated  from 
the  snares  of  illusion,  may  be  re-absorbed  in  Atma. 

Nor  does  the  Hindu  worship  the  images  before  which  he  bows,  but 
genii  imagined  to  be  present  in  the  images.  When  asked  why  he  prays 
before  the  image,  the  learned  Hindu  replies  by  asking  another  question, 
to  wit,  '  Why  do  you  pray  into  the  air  %  You  pray  to  God  as  present  in  the 
air.  We  pray  to  Him  as  present  in  the  image.  Where  lies  the  difference  V 
We  state  these  facts  to  indicate  the  character  of  the  Hindu  religion.  It 
is,  throughout,  a  systematized  whole,  and  is  fully  understood  by  its 
learned  expounders,  the  Brahmins.  The  important  bearing  of  these  facts 
will  appear  hereafter. 

4.  The  language  in  which  the  doctrine  of  Brahm  is  set  forth  in  these 
books,  naturally  gave  rise  to  the  various  sects  and  schools  in  Philosophy — 
fiuhools  such  as  that  of  Pantheism,  Pure  Idealism,  and  Materialism,  for 


86  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

example — schools  of  which  we  are  about  to  give  an  account.  Brahm 
originally  existed  'in  luminous  shadows,'  a  'being  indeterminate/  Is 
this  language  to  be  understood  literally,  or  symbolically  1  As  individuals 
i  nterpret  this  language  for  themselves,  such  will  be  their  theory  of  existence 
aud  its  laws.  Some  would  naturally  suppose  that  the  original,  undeveloped, 
and  mysterious  state  of  Brahm  as  a  pure  spirit,  or  as  pure  thought,  is  sym- 
bolically represented  by  such  language.  This  exposition  would  give  rise 
to  Idealism  in  its  various  forms.  Such  systems,  conformed  as  they  are 
niore  or  less  perfectly  to  the  prevailing  idea  of  Brahm  as  a  spiritual 
essence,  and  also  to  the  positive  teaching  of  portions  of  the  Vedas,  would 
be  regarded  as  orthodox,  or  semi-orthodox  Others,  giving  to  this  language 
a  more  literal  construction,  would  deduce  from  the  same  what  are  desig- 
nated as  heterodox  systems.  We  have  here  what  will  be  regarded,  as 
we  judge,  a  satisfactory  account  of  the  origin  of  the  various  conflicting 
systems,  all  of  which  are  professed  expositions  of  the  Philosophy  taught 
in  the  writings  under  consideration. 

Philosophers  and  Eeligionists  op  India. 

Before  proceeding  to  an  elucidation  of  the  Hindu  systems  of  Philosophy, 
one  other  topic  needs  a  still  further  elucidation  than  we  have  yet  given 
it — the  character  and  relations  of  the  philosophers  and  religionists  of  that 
country.  The  common  doctrine  of  all  the  sacred  books  of  the  people  is 
this — man  seeks,  as  the  end  and  sole  good  of  his  being,  for  absolute 
repose,  a  state  in  which  all  thought,  all  feeling,  all  desire,  and  all  activity 
of  every  kind  for  ever  cease.  This  consummation  can  be  reached  but  by 
one  of  two  methods — science  and  religious  observances.  The  former  is 
the  most  direct,  and  by  far  the  shortest,  method,  inasmuch  as  it  brings 
the  mind  into  immediate  association  with  what  is  immutable,  eternal,  and 
the  original  source  of  being.  This  state  of  immediate  vision,  and  con- 
templation, of  what  cannot  change  being  attained,  the  mind  waits  but 
for  death,  which  is  freedom  from  the  illusion  of  the  flesh,  when  it  is  at 
once  absorbed  in  Brahm,  or  enters  into  a  state  of  non-being,  perfect 
unconsciousness  and  inactivity  being  attained  equally  in  both  cases. 

According  to  the  universal  Hindu  faith,  also,  none  but  the  few  who 
have  special  powers  of  thought  and  insight  have  any  capacity  whatever 
for  the  method  of  science.  But  one  method  remains  for  the  masses,  that 
of  religious  observances.  Religion  does  not,  like  science,  free  the  soul 
from  the  necessity  of  transmigrations,  but  does  diminish  their  number 
and  continuance,  and  render  present  illusions  more  tolerable  than  they 
otherwise  would  be.  The  gods  also,  which  these  religionists  worship,  are 
not  uncreated  and  eternal  existences  ;  but,  like  man,  finite  and  temporary 
emanations  from  the  sole  real  existence,  Brahm  ;  and  though  superior  to 
man,  yet,  with  him,  subject  to  the  necessity  of  transmigration.     !Nor  is 


EXPOS  mo  y  of  the  general  doctrine  of  the  vedas.   87 

tlie  worship  of  the  Hindu  prompted  by  the  sentiment  of  love,  or  adoration, 
but  wholly  by  that  of  fear  of  the  curse  of  the  higher  genii,  the  gods 
on  the  one  hand,  and  indefinite  and  protracted  transmigrations  on  the 
other. 

That  which  elevates,  in  the  regard  of  the  people,  the  scientist  above 
the  rest  of  the  race,  and  even  above  the  gods,  is  his  supposed  relation  to 
the  Infinite  and  Absolute,  his  consequent  freedom  from  the  necessity  of 
transmigration — an  evil  common  to  men  and  the  gods — and  his  nearness 
to  the  state  of  absorption  in  Brahm,  or  to  non-being,  the  state  which  is 
to  all  the  object  of  supreme  desire.  It  is  this  imagined  relation  which 
imparts  to  tliis  man,  in  popular  regard,  his  fatal  curse-power  over  gods 
and  men. 

The  Hindu  scientist,  so  intelligent  missionaries  have  informed  us,  thus 
illustrates  his  imagined  relations  to  Brahra,  or  to  non-being :  '  You  see 
that  vessel  turned  upside  down.  The  air  within  is  identical  with  that 
without  the  shell,  but  is  confined  where  it  is  by  that  shell.  Break  the 
shell,  or  remove  the  vessel,  and  the  confined  air  instantly  intermingles 
with  the  encircling  atmosphere.  So  I,  who  am  a  part  of  Brahm,  or  of 
the  source  of  being,  am  now  separated  from  Brahm,  or  non-being,  but  by 
one  illusion,  that  of  the  body.  At  death  this  shell  is  broken,  or  this  last 
illusion,  which  now  confines  me,  is  dissipated,  and  absorption,  or  non- 
being,  instantly  follows.'  The  way  is  now  fully  prepared  for  an  elucida- 
tion of  the  varied  systems  of  the  Hindu  Philosophy — systems  which  we 
shall  present  in  the  order  already  indicated. 

We  begin  with  the  orthodox  systems,  or  those  conformed  to  the  Vedas. 


SECTION  IL 
THE  MIMANSA  AND  VEDANTA  SYSTEMS. 

Of  this  class,  two  systems  have  the  highest  place  in  Hindu  thought — the 
Mimansa  and  the  Vedanta  systems.  The  specific  object  of  the  former, 
which  is  attributed  to  an  author  of  the  name  of  Djaimini,  is  to  give  rules 
for  the  correct  interpretation  of  the  Vedas.  This  author  but  indirectly, 
and  that  very  obscurely,  indicates  a  system  of  doctrine.  A  presentation 
of  the  subject-matter  of  his  work  does  not,  consequently,  fall  in  with  the 
plan  of  this  Treatise.  A  single  extract  from  the  '  Epitome  of  Philosophy' 
may,  perhaps,  interest  the  reader.  '  In  the  Mimansa  the  breath  of  God 
is  represented  as  the  primary  divine  emanation,  from  whence  proceed  the 
sounds  which  produce  letters.  These  sounds — these  letters — are,  as  it  were, 
an  ethereal  word,  or  writing,  of  which  beings  are  the  grosser  forms.  The 
Mimansa  hence  concludes  that  the  relation  of  articulate  sounds  to  ideas  is 


88  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

not  conventional,  but  original  and  necessary,  human  speech  being  itself  a 
reproduction  of  the  creative  word.  Hence  the  efldcacy  of  invocation  and 
of  incantation.' 

The  Vedanta  System. 

Who  the  author  of  this  system  was  is  uncertain.  Some  have  ascribed 
the  work  to  Vyasa  himself,  but  probably  with  no  good  reason.  The  real 
author,  however,  whoever  he  was,  is  to  be  regarded  as  no  common  world- 
thinker.  To  understand  the  system  we  must  call  to  mind  two  fundamental 
characteristics  of  the  Hindu  faith — that  *  the  whole  end  of  man  '  is  to 
attain  to  a  state  of  absolute  quietude — a  state  in  which  all  consciousness 
and  mental  activity  for  ever  and  wholly  cease,  and  that  the  immutable 
condition  of  attaining  this  state  at  death,  and  thus  escaping  unhappy 
transmigrations,  is,  through  pure  science,  a  direct  and  immediate  vision, 
of  the  Absolute  as  the  sole  reality.  When  the  soul  has  attained  this 
vision,  it  is  at  once  freed  from  all  disturbing  illusions  of  the  outward 
senses,  and  of  the  inward  consciousness,  of  all  illusions  but  one — the 
bonds  of  the  flesh  or  of  the  body.  At  death,  this  last  illusion  wholly 
disappears,  and  the  emancipated  spirit  is  reabsorbed  in  Brahm,  the  only 
real  and  absolute  being. 

This  scientific  insight,  this  direct  vision  of  the  absolute  as  the  only 
reality,  together  with  the  knowledge  that  all  else  is  illusion,  cannot  be 
attained  through  the  senses,  or  through  the  reflective  consciousness. 
Observation,  inward  reflection,  and  reasoning  pertain  only  to  what  is 
mutable  and  relative,  and  can,  consequently,  never  attain  to  an  appre- 
hension of  the  absolute.  On  the  other  hand,  there  must  be  a  voluntary 
closing  of  the  senses  to  all  visible  objects ;  a  suspension,  in  every  pos- 
sible form,  of  all  desire,  of  all  reflection,  reasoning,  and  mental  activity. 
The  mind  must  hold  itself,  on  the  other  hand,  in  the  absolute  stillness 
of  pious,  unreflective  meditation. 

When  this  absolute  stillness  of  unthinking  thought  has  been  fully 
attained,  the  soul  then  receives  the  absolute  revelation  of  science,  a 
revelation  comprehended  in  this  one  apprehension,  'Brahm  alone  exists; 
all  else  is  illibsion.* 

The  following,  as  described  to  ns  by  learned  missionaries,  is  the  process 
by  which  the  philosopher  of  India  induces  this  inward  mental  stillness 
and  non-thought,  which  he  designates  as  *  pious  meditation.'  He  first 
of  all  places  himself  in  the  condition  of  the  greatest  possible  solitude, 
■where  he  is  encircled  with  the  fewest  possible  external  objects  to  attract 
and  distract  attention,  and  where  the  atmosphere  is  perfectly  still  around 
him.  Here,  having  seated  himself  upon  the  ground,  he  closes  his  eyes, 
or  fixes  them  directly  upon  the  end  of  his  nose,  suspends  all  thought 
and  reflection,  desire,  and  inward  voluntary  activity.     Then  he  closea 


THE  MI  MANS  A  AND   VEDANTA  SYSTEMS.  89 

one  nostril,  holds  his  breath  as  long  as  possible,  and,  when  he  must 
breathe,  exhales  and  inhales  the  air  with  the  least  possible  physical 
exertion.  All  within  and  without  is  now  in  a  state  of  perfect  stillness. 
One  desire  possesses  the  whole  being,  a  vision  of  the  absolute.  Here,  as 
above  stated,  the  great  revelation  of  absolute  science  opens  with  perfect 
distinctness  upon  the  mental  vision,  to  wit :  '  Brahm  is  the  sole  exist- 
ence ;  all  beside  him  is  illusion.'  These  periods  of  '  pious  meditation,'  or 
non-thought,  are  renewed  from  time  to  time,  with  sufficient  frequency  to 
render  the  great  revelation  omnipresently  real,  and  of  absolute  validity  to 
the  mind. 

According  to  the  *  Bhaghavat-Geeta,'  an  older  work  than  the 
*  Vedanta,'  when  the  Yogoe,  or  devotee,  gives  himself  up  to  this  pious, 
unreflective  meditation,  he  should  not  absolutely  dose,  his  eyes,  but  hold 
them  fixed  towards  the  end  of  his  nose,  so  as  to  perceive  no  other  object. 
The  mystic  of  the  Middle  Ages  fixed  his  eyes,  not  upon  the  end  of  his 
nose,  but  upon  that  of  his  navel  All  the  orthodox  schools  of  India 
agree  in  this,  that  absolute  suspension  of  thought  and  mental  activity  is 
the  necessary  condition  of  attaining  to  the  revelation  of  science  above 
designated.  *  When  the  Yogee,'  says  the  *  Geeta,'  *  renounces  all  assist- 
ance from  the  understanding,  and  remains  without  the  exercise  of  thought, 
he  is  identified  with  Brahm.' 

This  omnipresent  apprehension  of  the  Absolute  is  what  these  philoso- 
phers denominate  the  waking  state  of  man.  When  he  thinks  of  himself 
and  visible  objects  around  him  as  realities  in  themselves,  realities  distinct 
from  the  Absolute,  man  is  then  dreaming,  and  illusions  become  real  to 
him.  When,  on  the  other  hand,  he  apprehends  Brahm  as  the  sole 
reality,  and  all  else  as  emanations  from  him,  and  advancing  towards  final 
reabsorption  in  him,  and  all  individual  things  as  illusory  forms  of  being, 
then,  and  then  only,  is  the  mind  really  awake,  and  apprehends  realities 
as  they  are. 

In  his  subsequent  experience  the  Yogee  is  not  at  all  times  wholly  free 
from  the  illusions  of  sense  and  inward  reflection.  They  are  to  him, 
however,  as  dream-visions  are  to  man  when  awake.  But  he  is  free,  how- 
ever, from  all  ignorance  and  error,  and  becomes  possessed  of  all  know- 
ledge, which  consists  in  knowing  Brahm  to  be  the  only  real  existence, 
and  all  else  to  be  illusion.     To  know  this  is  to  know  everything. 

He  is  also  free  from  all  obligation  and  all  possibility  of  sinning.  The 
ideas  of  right  and  wrong  are  illusions,  implying  a  distinction  of  kinds  in 
action,  whereas  all  distinctions  of  every  kind  disappear  in  Brahm. 

In  his  direct  apprehensions  of  Brahm  as  the  sole  existence,  the 
absolute  unity  which  excludes  all  distinctions  and  all  change,  he  becomes 
perfectly  free  from  all  desire,  all  passion,  and  all  activity.  All  actions 
and  events,  all  relations  in  society,  domestic,  social,  and  civil,  all  good 


90  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

and  ill,  become  absolutely  indifferent  to  him.  At  death  all  illusions 
even  disappear,  and  all  thought  and  activity  for  ever  cease.  As  the  river 
is  lost  in  the  ocean,  so  is  the  Yogee  lost  in  Brahm,  and  never  returns  to 
consciousness  again. 

The  following  extract  from  the  *  Bhaghavat-Geeta,'  one  of  the  most 
sacred  books  of  India,  will  fully  evince  the  correctness  of  the  exposition 
we  have  given  of  the  Vedanta  Philosophy.  Two  vast  armies  are  about 
to  engage,  armies  both  of  which  are  of  the  same  country  and  kindred. 
Friends  and  countrymen  are  about  to  slaughter  each  other.  Arjoon,  a 
brave  young  warrior,  is  about  engaging  in  such  a  conflict.  '  Krishna,'  so 
we  read  in  the  work  referred  to,  contemplating  him  influenced  by  compunc- 
tion, his  eyes  overflowing  with  tears  and  his  breast  oppressed  with  deep 
affliction,  thus  addressed  him.  We  cite  the  passage  as  adduced  in 
Cousin's  introduction  to  the  '  History  of  Philosophy ' :  *  Truly,  Arjoon, 
your  pity  is  exceedingly  ridiculous.  Why  do  you  speak  of  friends  and 
of  relations'?  Why  of  men?  Eelations,  friends,  men,  beasts,  or 
stones  are  all  one.  A  perpetual  and  eternal  energy  has  created  all 
which  you  see,  and  renews  it  without  cessation.  What  is  to-day  a 
man  was  yesterday  a  plant,  and  to-morrow  may  become  a  plant  once 
more.  The  principle  of  everything  is  eternal ;  what  value  has  aught  else  ? 
Beyond  this  principle  everything  is  illusion.  The  fundamental  error 
is,  to  consider  as  true  that  which  is  only  apparent.  If  you  attach  any 
value  to  appearances  you  deceive  yourself ;  if  you  attach  it  to  your  actions, 
you  deceive  yourself  again  ;  for  as  all  is  illusion,  action  itself,  when  re- 
garded as  real,  is  illusion  also.  Nothing  exists  but  the  eternal  principle  ; 
being  in  itself.  It  follows  that  it  is  the  supreme  of  wisdom  to  let  things 
pass ;  to  do  what  we  are  compelled  to  do,  but  as  if  Ave  did  it  not,  and 
without  concerning  ourselves  about  the  result,  interiorly  motionless,  with 
our  eyes  fixed  unceasingly  upon  the  absolute  principle  which  alone  exists 
with  a  true  existence.' 

Specific  Expositions  of  the  Vedanta  System; 

1.  It  has  been  often  and  well  said  by  those  who  have  studied  the 
Vedanta  system,  that  in  it  we  have  the  doctrine  of  Pantheism  in  its  per- 
fection of  physical  statement  and  development.  Nothing  of  any  essential 
importance  has  ever  been  added  to  the  doctrine.  Nor  has  any  new 
method  of  development  or  deduction  been  introduced.  Schelling,  for 
example,  can  only  be  said  to  have  given  us  a  new  but  hardly  a  revised 
edition  of  the  Vedanta.  This  statement  will  be  fully  verified  when  we 
come  to  compare  the  two  systems,  the  ancient  and  the  modern,  together. 

2.  We  referred,  in  the  commencement  of  our  statement  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  Vedas,  to  the  question  whether  the  language  employed  to  represent 
fuudameutal  ideas  pertaining  to  the  nature  and  attributes  of  Brahm  was 


THE  MIMANSA  AND  VEDANTA  SYSTEMS.  91 

to  be  understood  as  a  literal  or  symbolical  representation.  In  the  *  Geeta ' 
and  other  sacred  books,  we  have  definite  statements  that  this  language  is 
■wholly  symbolical.  It .  is  only  in  this  sense  that  he  is  represented  as  a 
mass  of  clay  of  which  particular  beings  and  objects  are  the  forms  :  *  The 
eternal  spider  which  spins  from  its  own  bosom  the  tissue  of  creation ;  an 
immense  tire  from  which  creatures  ray  forth  in  myriads  of  sparks ;  the 
ocean  of  being,  on  whose  surface  appear  and  vanish  the  waves  of  exist- 
ence ,  the  foam  of  the  waves,  and  the  globules  of  the  foam,  which  appear 
to  be  distinct  from  each  other,  but  which  are  the  ocean  itself.' 

3.  In  creation  Brahm  appears  both  as  active  and  passive,  active  because 
he  originates  all  phenomenal  forms  or  illusions,  and  passive  because  he 
who  transforms,  and  he  who  is  transformed,  is  one  and  identical.  These 
transformations  become  more  and  more  distinct,  dissimilar,  and  unlike 
one  another  and  their  common  original,  that  is,  more  and  more  illusory, 
in  exact  proportion  to  their  distance  from  Brahm.  Hence  the  more  cleat 
oui  apprehensions  of  these  forms,  and  the  more  perfect  our  discrimination 
between  them,  the  more  deep  is  our  dream-life,  and  the  more  intense  its 
illusions.  When,  for  example,  we  have  obtained  a  distinct  apprehension 
of  any  object ,  when  we  come  to  regard  it  as  a  reality  in  itself,  and  as 
such  distinct  from  Brahm,  on  the  one  hand,  and  other  surrounding  objects, 
on  the  other,  and  when  we  have  designated  this  object  by  a  particular 
name,  then  the  dream  state  is  perfect,  and  the  illusion  complete.  When, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  soul  comes  out  of  the  dream  and  illusory  into  the 
waking  state,  that  of  pure  science,  then,  m  the  language  of  the  author 
from  whom  we  have  so  frequently  quoted,  '  all  forms,  all  names,  all  dis- 
tinctions vanish,  and  we  no  longer  perceive  anything  but  substance  with- 
out distinction,  without  name,  without  form,  the  pure  unity  where  the 
knowing  and  the  known  are  identical.' 

4.  In  the  Vedanta  system,  as  we  have  seen,  the  validity  of  the  doctrine 
of  Brahm  is  assumed,  not  as  a  deductive  truth,  but  as  one  which  is  d,  pruyri 
self-affirmed  ;  that  is,  as  self-evidently  true,  and  thus  true  in  two  forms — 
that  Brahm  does  exist  in  fact,  and  that  his  existence,  on  the  ground  of 
absolute  incompatibility,  implies,  of  necessity,  the  non-being  of  any  finite 
realities.  Here  we  have  two  naked,  lawless  assumptions  which  have,  and 
can  have,  no  place  on  a  priori  or  d,  posteriori  grounds  as  principles  in 
science,  the  place  which  they  do  occupy  in  the  system  before  us.  Space 
and  time  are  necessary  realities.  They  are  and  must  be  real,  whether 
any  other  object  does,  or  does  not,  exist.  But  space  and  time  do  not,  of 
themselves,  imply  any  other  reality.  Nor  have  we  any  (i  prion  grounds 
for  aliiiming  that  any  reality  does,  or  does  not,  exist  in  space  or  time. 
We  cannot  look  off  into  infinite  space  and  duration  and  determine  hpriori, 
we  repeat,  what  realities  do,  or  do  not,  exist  there.  This  is  self-evident. 
K  €rod  exists,  reason  and  revelation  both  afiirm  that  His  existence  can 


92  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

become  known  to  us  but  *by  the  things  which  are  made.'  Actual 
creation,  and  nothing  else,  implies  a  creator.  Until  we  apprehend  the 
universe  as  a  creation  proper,  we  have  no  ground  for  the  b,  priori  or  h 
posteriori  deduction  that  God,  or  Brahm,  the  creator  of  all  things,  does 
exist.  Nor  is  the  idea  that  the  Infinite  does  exist  in  any  sense  or  form 
incompatible  with  the  idea  that  the  Finite  is  real  also.  The  idea  that 
the  Infinite  and  Finite  exist,  as  distinct  and  separate  entities,  is  no  more 
self-contradictory  than  is  the  idea  that  they  are  one  and  identical.  The 
question.  What  realities  do  exist  in  time  and  space?  must  be  regarded  simply 
as  a  question  of  fact,  to  be  determined  not  h  priori,  but  by  evidence.  If 
matter  and  finite  spirit  are  consciously  revealed  as  facts  of  existence,  on 
the  one  hand,  and  that  of  the  Infinite  and  Perfect,  on  the  other,  we  must 
accept  of  all  in  common,  as  knowable  and  known  realities,  or  compel  our- 
selves to  treat  as  illusion  the  clearest  and  most  absolute  principles  and 
laws  of  inductive  and  deductive  science. 

5.  As  a  further  condition  of  fully  comprehending  the  character  and 
foundation  of  Hindu  Pantheism,  we  need  to  explain  the  relations  of  the 
philosopher  and  the  rest  of  his  kind  to  real  and  assumed  truths  of  science. 
The  masses,  in  common  with  the  philosophers,  can  understand  a  doctrine 
when  stated  as  a  fact,  and  as  clearly  understand  the  proximate  and  final 
deductions  from  that  doctrine.  The  philosopher,  on  the  other  hand, 
comprehends  the  same  doctrine  in  its  systematized  connections  with  its 
basis  principles,  fundamental  facts,  and  proximate  and  final  deductions. 
In  these  two  forms,  philosophers  and  the  masses  believe  in  the  validity 
of  the  Copernican  system. 

Through  the  general  concurrence  of  educated  minds,  deductions  of 
true  and  false  science  often,  for  long  periods,  command  the  belief  of  our 
race.  In  these  two  forms,  the  Yogees  and  common  people  of  India  hold 
the  doctrine  of  Pantheism,  as  expounded  in  the  Vedanta  and  other 
schools.  The  faith  of  that  people,  as  we  have  seen,  as  far  as  the  induction 
of  principles  and  facts  is  concerned,  rests  upon  no  scientific  basis,  but 
upon  lawless  assumptions. 

What  rational  basis  has  that  faith,  as  far  as  the  consent  of  men  of 
science  is  concerned  ?  What  if  the  people  of  Christendom,  in  this  nine- 
teenth century,  should  consent  that  a  class  of  self-constituted  philosophers 
should  retire  to  places  of  perfect  stillness  and  solitude,  and  then,  when  in 
a  state  of  pure  voluntary,  unreflective  non-thought,  with  their  eyes  closed, 
or  fixed  upon  the  ends  of  their  noses,  or  the  points  of  their  navels,  should 
give  forth  as  truths  of  absolute  science,  the  apprehensions  which  might 
then  and  there  arise  in  their  minds,  in  regard  to  metaphysics,  the  natural 
and  physical  sciences,  and  the  mechanism  of  the  universe  1  Our  faith  in 
regard  to  all  such  truths  would,  undeniably,  have  a  basis  just  as  rational 
as  has  that  of  the  Hindu  in  regard  to  the  higher  doctrines  pertaining  to 


THE  MIMANSA  AND  VEDANTA  SYSTEMS.  93 

spirit,  matter,  time,  space,  God,  duty,  immortality,  and  retribution.  "We 
shall  soon  be  able  to  determine  whether  the  faith  of  the  Pantheist,  and 
with  him  that  of  the  Subjective  and  Pure  Idealist,  the  Materialist,  and 
Sceptic,  have,  in  fact  and  truth,  any  more  scientific  or  rational  basis. 

6.  The  moral  bearings  of  the  doctrine  of  Pantheism  are  presented  in 
their  most  rigid  applications  by  the  Vedanta  and  other  like  schools  in 
India.  Illusions,  or  emanations  from  Brahm,  are  of  two  kinds,  material 
and  mental,  or  illusory  forms  of  matter  and  spirit.  Both  matter  and 
spirit,  as  soul  and  body,  are  united  in  man.  The  former,  as  a  direct 
emanation  from  Brahm,  is  in  itself,  but  not  as  an  emanation,  eternal,  in- 
corruptible and  incapable  of  sin.  The  body  is  the  exclusive  source  and 
cause  of  seeming  corruption.  All  its  activities,  being  subject  to  the  law 
of  cause  and  eflfect,  cannot  but  be  what  they  are.  Moral  criminality, 
therefore,  is  impossible  to  man.  Forms  of  phenomena,  and  acts  of  men, 
differ  from  one  another,  and  one  is  in  itself  relatively  more  perfect  than 
another.  Men  are  divided  into  three  classes:  the  Yogees,  who,  by  science, 
know  Brahm — those  who  worship  and  perform  good  works — and  those 
whose  activities  are  under  the  control  of  the  bodily  propensities.  *  The 
knower  of  .God  becomes  God.'  Such  is  the  express  teaching  of  the 
Vedanta.  The  second  class  are  perfect  in  a  lower  sense.  *  Good  works 
and  ceremonies,'  says  the  '  Geeta,'  '  confine  the  soul,  and  do  not  liberate 
it.'  'The  knowledge  which  realizes  that  everything  is  Brahm,'  it  says 
again,  *  alone  liberates  the  souL  It  annuls  the  effect  both  of  our  virtues 
and  vices.'  The  latter  class  are  debased  by  ignorance  and  vice.  The  soul, 
however,  which,  in  its  essence  is  identical  with  Brahm,  is,  like  Brahm, 
incapable  of  natural  or  moral  corruption.  The  Yogee,  when  expostulated 
with  by  the  missionary  for  the  beastly  vices  and  gross  crimes  which  he 
often  practises  and  perpetrates,  replies  that  all  these  belong  to  the  illusions 
of  the  flesh,  and  do  not  touch  the  souL 

Ancient  and  Modern  Pantheism. 

It  has  been  said  with  perfect  correctness,  as  we  have  before  stated,  that 
'the  Vedanta  Philosophy  is  an  exhibition  of  Pantheism  in  its  greatest 
metaphysical  strictness.  It  has  given  a  complete  formula  of  it.  All  the 
systems  of  Pantheism  which  have  since  been  imagined  have  added 
nothing  fundamental.  The  following  considerations  and  facts  will  fully 
verify  the  above  statements.  We  will  consider  modern  Pantheism  as 
presented  and  elucidated  by  its  great  modern  expounder,  Schelling.  On 
the  relations  of  the  two  systems  we  remark  : 

1.  That  the  formulas  in  which  the  doctrine  is  set  forth  in  the  two 
systems  are  perfectly  identical  in  meaning,  and  almost  as  perfectly  so  in 
in  their  forms.     The  Hindu  formula  we  have  already  given — to  wit, 


94  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

'  Brahm  alone  exists ;  everything  else  is  illusion.'  The  following  is  the 
formula  of  modern  Pantheism,  as  stated  by  Schelling  • 

*  The  self-existent  One  must  be  the  only  absolute  reality  ;  all  else  can 
be  but  a  developing  of  the  one  original  and  eternal  being.'  Again,  '  The 
Absolute,  from  the  first,  contains  in  itself,  potentially,  all  that  it  after- 
wards becomes  actually  by  means  of  its  own  self-development.'  In  the 
modern  system,  also,  God  is  called,  not  only  the  Absolute,  but  '  the  All- 
One;'  the  meaning  being,  that  *  the  universe  is  God,  and  God  the  universe  ; 
or  that  '  God,  developing  Himself  in  various  forms,  and  according  to 
necessary  laws,  is  the  only  existence.' 

Both  systems  speak  of  the  phenomenal,  or  illusions,  and  in  the  same 
sense.  Illusions,  as  real  developments  of,  or  emanations  from  Brahm,  we 
are  expressly  taught  in  the  Vedanta  system,  are  realities.  They  are  illu- 
sions when,  and  only  when,  they  are  regarded,  not  as  emanations  from 
Brahm,  but  as  distinct  and  separate  existences  in  themselves.  The  same 
identical  distinctions  are  expressly  made  in  the  systems  of  modern 
Pantheism. 

In  both  systems,  also,  Brahm,  and  'the  All-One,'  is  each  expressly 
represented  as  being,  prior  to  creation,  undeveloped,  and  as  being  de- 
veloped in  creation.  The  same  kind  and  form  of  activity  and  passivity 
are,  in  both  systems,  attributed  to  God,  the  developed  and  that  which 
develops  being  represented  as  one  and  identical.  According  to  the 
formula  of  the  modern  system,  'from  the  absolute  subject,  or  natvra 
naturans,  is  derived  the  absolute  object,  or  natura  naturata.'  According 
to  the  ancient  formula,  as  we  have  seen,  '  he  who  transforms  is,  at  the 
same  time,  he  who  is  transformed.'  The  above  facts  and  statements 
absolutely  verify  the  identity  of  the  ancient  and  modern  systems.  This 
identity  is  admitted  by  Coleridge,  and  is  adduced  by  him  as  proof  of 
the  truth  of  each. 

2.  Our  second  general  remark  upon  these  systems  is  this.  Both  in 
common  are  not  only  based  upon  mere  assumptions,  but  upon  the  same 
identical  assumptions.  In  neither  is  the  doctrine  of  Brahm,  or  '  the  All- 
One,'  as  the  sole  real  existence,  presented  as  a  deductive  truth,  but  a  first 
truth,  or  original  and  basis-principle  in  science,  a  self-evident  principle, 
one  whose  validity  is  self-afiirmed.  The  only  proof  which  the  Vedantists 
present  of  their  doctrine  is  exclusively  derived,  as  we  have  seen,  from 
what  is  contained  in  '  the  very  idea  of  Brahm.'  In  all  the  axioms  in  all 
the  sciences,  we  do  not  go  outside  of  the  axiom  itself  to  find  its  absolute 
and  necessary  validity.  From  what  is  intrinsic  in  the  axiom  itself  its 
validity  is  wholly  self-aflSrmed.  So  the  Vedantist  begins  and  ends  with 
the  doctrine  of  Brahm  as  a  self-evident  truth,  a  first  principle  in  science. 
In  the  'Geeta'  we  find  the  following  paragraph,  which  explains  the  method 
by  which  the  truth  of  the  doctrine  of  Brahma  is  discerned  :  '  One  cannot 


THE  MIMANSA  AND  VEDANTA  SYSTEMS.  95 

attain  it  throuj^h  the  word,  throuf^h  the  mind,  or  through  the  eye.  It  13 
only  reached  by  him  who  says,  "  It  is  !  it  is  !"  He  perceives  it  in  its 
essence.  Its  essence  appears  when  one  perceives  it  as  it  is.'  In  other 
words,  this  doctrine  must  be  assumed  to  be  true,  or  it  can  by  no  possi- 
bility be  regarded  as  true. 

The  absolute  identity  of  the  ancient  and  modem  systems,  as  far  as 
relates  to  basis-principles,  has  already  been  shown  by  a  passage  in  which 
Schelling  affirms  the  immutable  condition  of  entrance  into  and  progress 
in  the  Speculative  Philosophy  is  the  assumption  of  the  doctrine  of  '  the 
All-One'  as  a  first,  self-affirmed  truth  in  science.  For  the  sake  of  dis- 
tinctness of  comparison,  we  cite  the  paragraph  again.  We  give  it  as  it 
appears  in  Morrell's  '  History  of  Modern  Philosophy' :  '  Unless  we  can 
disenthral  ourselves  from  our  unreflective  habits  of  thinking — unless  we 
can  look  through  the  veil  of  surrounding  phenomena — unless,  by  this 
spiritual  vision,  we  can  realize  the  presence  of  the  Infinite  as  the  only 
real  and  eternal  existence,  we  have  not  the  capacity,'  said  Schelling,  '  to 
take  the  very  first  step  into  the  region  of  Speculative  Philosophy.'  In 
other  words,  unless  you  can  begin  with  the  assumption  *  It  is  !  it  is  !* 
your  entrance  even  into  the  Speculative  Philosophy  is  for  ever  barred ; 
indeed,  capacity  for  philosophic  thought,  *  the  intellectual  intuition,'  is 
wholly  wanting  in  you. 

By  the  express  confession  and  showing  of  all  Pantheists  of  ancient  and 
modern  schools,  their  system  has  no  other  basis  whatever  but  a  mere 
assumption,  and  stands  revealed  as  nothing  but  a  logical  fiction,  unless  it 
can  be  shown  that  the  doctrine  of  Brahm  or  '  the  All-One,'  as  '  the  only 
real  and  eternal  existence,'  has  absolute  self-evident  validity.  Who  will 
pretend  that  this  doctrine  has  this  form  of  validity  %  Is  it  a  truth  self- 
evident  that  no  real  finite  objects  do  exist  %  Have  we  not  just  as  much 
ground  for  the  assumption  which  is  taken  by  the  Materialist,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  Subjective  Idealist,  on  the  other,  that  the  finite  alone  is  real, 
as  we  have  for  the  assumption  that  Brahm,  or  '  the  All-One,'  is  the  sole 
reality  %  Is  it  to  be  assumed,  as  a  self-evident  truth,  that  matter,  finite, 
spirit,  space,  time,  and  God  as  the  Infinite  and  Perfect,  do  not  all  exist 
together  as  each  a  reality  in  itself?  Where  is  the  d,  priori  ground  for  the 
determination  of  the  question.  What  realities  do  and  do  not  exist  in  time 
and  space  i  We  affirm,  without  fear  of  rational  contradiction,  that  no 
such  grounds  do  exist,  and  that  that  is  a  fictitious  Philosophy  which  has, 
as  Pantheism  in  all  its  forms  has,  no  other  basis  than  d,  jariori  assump- 
tion. 

3.  Both  systems,  also,  are  developed  throughout  in  absolute  conformity 
to  the  same  identical  method.  The  method  of  construction  and  develop- 
ment strictly  common  to  each  is  exclusively  d,pi'ioii  All  induction  of 
facts    of  external  and    internal   perception  is   ignored  and    repudiated. 


96  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Thought  is  sent  off  into  infinite  space  and  eternal  duration  to  determine, 
by  exclusive  a  priori  insight,  what  realities  exist  in  the  one,  and  what 
events  are  passing  in  the  other. 

The  Yogee,  as  preparatory  to  the  enjoyment  of  this  divine  insight,  in 
the  language  of  the  '  Bhaghavat-Geeta,'  '  renounces  all  assistance  from  the 
understanding,  and  remains  without  the  exercise  of  thought' — '  keeps  his 
head,  his  neck,  and  body  steady  without  motion,  keeps  his  eyes  fixed  on 
the  end  of  his  nose,  and  looks  at  no  other  place  around.'  In  this  state  of 
utter  non-thought,  as  we  have  seen,  the  absolute  revelation  of  science  is 
received — the  revelation  in  which  the  problem  of  universal  being  and  its 
laws  is  fully  solved. 

Let  us  now  compare  the  above  with  the  method  of  the  modern  Tran- 
scendental Philosophy,  and  discern,  if  we  can,  the  real  difference  between 
this  and  that  above  presented. '  Before  the  mind  does,  or  can,  according 
to  the  express  teachings  of  Coleridge,  enter  the  sphere  of  philosophic 
thought,  it  must,  as  we  have  seen,  voluntarily  repudiate  as  utterly  illusive 
and  invalid  all  previously  existing  forms  of  world-knowledge,  and  compel 
itself  to  treat  that  knowledge,  though  *  innate  and  connatural,' '  as  nothing 
but  a  prejudice.'  'This  purification  of  the  mind,'  he  says,  'is  effected  by 
an  absolute  and  scientific  scepticism,  to  which  the  mind  voluntarily  de- 
termines itself  for  the  specific  purpose  of  future  certainty.'  Such  is  the 
avowed  method  of  all  philosophers  of  the  Idealistic  school  in  all  the 
world.  *  I  put  myself,  when  I  begin  to  philosophize,'  says  Krug,  one  of 
the  great  expounders  of  the  modern  system,  '  into  a  state  of  not  knowing, 
since  I  am  to  produce  in  me  for  the  first  time  a  knowledge.'  '  I  accord- 
ingly regard  all  my  previous  knowledge  as  uncertain,  and  strive  after  a 
higher  knowledge,  that  shall  be  certain,  or  be  made  so.'  In  this  state  of 
'not  knowing,'  which  is  undeniably  identical  with  the  Yogee's  non-thought, 
our  modern  philosopher  receives  his  revelation  of  '  absolute  science.' 
Whether  the  latter,  like  the  former,  does,  while  waiting  for  this  revela- 
tion, remain  in  the  same  physical  stillness,  with  *  his  eyes  fixed  upon  the 
end  of  his  nose,'  we  are  not  informed.  The  mental  state,  however,  and 
this  only,  is  material,  the  mental  state  is  in  both  cases  absolutely  the 
same,  and  the  one  as  perfectly  adapted  to  receive  the  revelation  as  the 
other. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  also  that,  according  to  the  express  teachings  of 
the  two  systems,  *  the  absolute  revelation  of  science'  is  received,  after  the 
voluntary  non-thought  conditions  have  been  fulfilled,  by  and  through  the 
same  'faculty  of  intellectual  intuition' — a  faculty  conferred  by  nature 
upon  the  philosopher,  and  denied  to  the  rest  of  mankind.  The  sacred 
books  to  which  we  have  referred  assign  this  as  the  specific  reason  why 
the  Yogee  can,  and  the  rest  of  the  race  cannot,  attain  the  desired  consum- 
Tuation  by  science — that  the  faculty  through  which  he  received  that  abso- 


THE  MIMANSA  AND  VEDANTA  SYSTEMS.  97 

lute  revelation  is  possessed  by  none  but  him.  So  Coleridge  and  Schelling 
speak  of  the  special  '  philosophical  talent,'  and  of  the  special  '  faculty  of 
intellectual  intuition,'  and  speak  of  this  faculty  as  possessed  only  by  the 
philosopher.  The  forms  of  world-knowledge  common  to  all  the  race,  we 
are  told,  *  are  to  all  but  the  philosopher  the  first  principles  of  knowledge, 
and  the  final  tests  of  truth.'  The  philosopher,  and  he  only,  has  the 
faculty  which  pierces  the  veil  of  the  phenomenal,  and  beholds  *  the  All- 
One'  face  to  face.  Hence  his  philosophy,  because  it  pertains  to  the 
realities  which  transcend  the  powers  of  thought  common  to  the  race,  is 
called  *  the  Transcendental  Philosophy.* 

4  An  identity  equally  absolute  pertains,  not  only  to  the  necessary 
moral  consequents  of  the  two  systems,  but  equally  to  the  express  moral 
teachings  of  the  same.  If  Brahm,  or  the  All-One,  is  the  sole  existence, 
and  if  the  universe  with  all  its  facts,  causes,  and  seeming  acts  of  creatures, 
is  but  God  in  a  state  of  development,  as  both  systems  absolutely  affirm, 
to  say  that  real  moral  evil  exists  is  to  affirm  that  the  Infinite  and  Absolute 
is  a  sinner.  This  necessary  consequence  of  the  system,  both  the  Hindu 
and  the  modern  Pantheist  clearly  perceive,  and  consequently,  in  fact  and 
form,  deny  the  possibility  of  moral  evil.  This,  as  we  have  already  shown, 
and  might  show  by  numberless  other  references,  is  expressly  taught  in  the 
Hindu  books  to  wliich  we  have  referred.  '"Vice  and  crime,'  we  are  ex- 
pressly taught  in  the  modern  system,  *  are  normal  states  of  human  nature,' 

*  Holding  as  they  do  but  one  essence  of  all  things,  and  that  essence  God,' 
says  a  leading  modern  pantheist,  and  none  deny  his  statements,  'Pantheism 
must  deny  the  existence  of  essential  evil.'  Again,  *  Sin  is  not  a  wilful 
transgression  of  righteous  moral  law,  but  the  difficulty  and  obstruction 
■which  Infinite  meets  with  in  entering  into  the  finite.' 

The  above  considerations  and  facts  fully  evince  the  absolute  identity, 
in  all  fundamental  particulars,  of  Hindu  and  modern  Pantheism.  The 
latter  has  in  reality  added  nothing  to,  and  taken  nothing  from,  the 
former.  The  researches  of  more  than  twenty  centuries  have  added 
nothing  to  the  claims,  or  the  evidence,  of  the  validity  of  the  system. 

*  All  remain  as  they  were  from  the  beginning.' 

Thb  Fixed  Method  op  Pantheism  as  seen  in  the  Light  of  the 
Immutable  Puinciples  op  True  Science. 
A  moment's  reflection  will  convince  every  thinking  mind  that  no 
process  of  induction  and  deduction  can  be  at  a  farther  remove  from  all 
the  principles  known  to  true  science  than  is  the  fixed  and  immutable 
method  of  the  Pantheistic  and  Transcendental  Philosophy.  True  science 
begins  universally  with  facts  of  real  knowledge,  Avith  necessary  principles 
implied  by  such  facts,  and  then  with  rigid  integrity  deduces  the  conclusions 
necessarily  yielded  by  such  principles  and  facts.    Suppose  now  that  in  all 

7 


98  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

our  universities,  colleges,  and  schools,  all  the  ordinary  sciences,  pure  and 
mixed,  were  interpreted  and  taught  throughout  in  conformity  with  such 
a  method  as  this.  The  professor,  or  teacher,  should  first  of  all,  in  con- 
formity with  the  method  of  the  yogee,  *  renounce  all  assistance  from  the 
understanding  and  remain  without  the  exercise  of  thought,'  or  with  the 
modern  Rationalist,  *  put  himself  into  a  state  of  not  knowing,'  *  and  regard 
all  previous  knowledge  as  uncertain,'  and  then  from  pure  h,  priori  insight 
interpret  for  the  pupil  all  problems  in  the  mathematics,  the  natural 
sciences,  physiology,  and  astronomy.  Would  not  the  world  justly  affirm 
that  our  institutions  had  run  mad  ?  Your  child  is  sick  with  a  perilous 
disease.  The  physician  you  call  in  seats  himself  by  its  side,  and  having 
'voluntarily  determined  himself  "to"  an  absolute  scientific  scepticism' 
in  regard  to  all  existing  forms  of  medical  knowledge,  *  with  his  eyes  fixed 
upon  the  end  of  his  nose,'  or  directed  nowhere,  by  *  pure  intellectual 
intuition/  he  determines  the  nature  and  state  of  the  disease  of  his  patient, 
and  the  remedy  to  be  applied.  If  you  are  a  maa  of  the  world,  you  will 
kick  the  fool  out  of  your  house.  If  you  are  a  Christian,  you  will  kindly, 
but  firmly,  tell  him  to  take  up  his  legs  and  walk  homa  Yet  in  avowed 
and  exclusive  conformity  to  this  identical  method,  the  Pantheist  of  all 
ages,  and  the  Kationalist  of  all  schools,  interprets  for  us  the  problem  of 
universal  being  and  its  laws ;  the  great  problems,  we  repeat,  in  regard  to 
matter,  spirit,  time,  space,  God,  duty,  and  immortality.  Shall  we  '  compel 
ourselves  to  regard'  and  treat  them  as  the  'lights  of  the  world'? 

*  I  had  a  vision  in  my  sleep '  some  time  since — a  vision  which  impres- 
sively illustrates  the  state  into  which  the  Pantheist,  at  the  beginning, 
voluntarily  places  himself  relatively  to  the  great  being-problem  which  he 
attempts  to  solve.  I  had  heard  the  sentiment  quite  frequently  expressed 
thac  in  eternity,  as  well  as  here,  the  soul  would  make  its  own  heaven  or 
hell.  My  thoughts  upon  the  subject  entered  into  my  night  vision,  and 
took  definite  form  there.  My  soul  had  left  the  body,  and  in  company 
with  an  unknown  spirit,  was  passing  through  empty  space.  We  seemed 
to  touch  nothing,  and  were  yet  in  motion.  There  was  merely  light 
sufficient  to  render  emptiness  visible.  At  length  we  stopped,  when  my 
companion  said  to  me,  *  Now,  sir,  you  must,  right  here,  make  your  own 
heaven,'  and  instantly  passed  from  sight.  Standing  for  a  moment  in  this 
void,  I  sent  forth  a  cry,  '  Will  not  some  being  communicate  with  me  heref 
Not  e\^n  an  echo  replying,  the  silence  became  more  audible  and  emptiness 
more  vacant  than  before.  Again  I  cried,  with  the  same  result  as  before, 
'  Will  not  some  being  communicate  with  me  here  V  With  a  lamentable 
cry,  I  exclaimed  a  third  time,  '  Will  not  some  being  communicate  with 
me  here?'  Finding  that  if  I  had  a  heaven  at  all,  I  must  make  it  myself, 
and  not  finding  '  things  without  me,'  with  which  to  construct  anything, 
thought  turned  inward  to  discover  what  materials  existed  there.     Here  I 


THE  MIMANSA  AND  VEDANTA  SYSTEMS.  99 

found  nothing  but  *  imaginary  substrata*  I  accordingly  determined  to 
try  ray  hand  at  making  poetry.  !Not  having  been  born  a  poet,  and  never 
having  apprenticed  myself  to  the  trade  of  verse-making,  and  having 
nothing  but  the  poorest  conceivable  materials  to  work  upon,  I  found  my 
heaven  taking  on  the  rudest  and  most  miserable  form  imaginable.  In 
short,  I  found  myself  in  the  most  ridiculous  limbo  that  mind  ever  fell 
into,  even  in  dreamland.  When  J!  awoke  my  mind  returned  with  fresh 
interest  to  the  old  idea  that  '  God  hath  builded  for  them  a  city,'  and  that 
in  that  city  '  the  smile  of  the  Lord  is  the  feast  of  the  soul.'  I  have  ever 
since  had  the  impression,  also,  that  in  that  mental  limbo  I  was  in  as 
favourable  a  state  to  make,  for  myself,  my  own  proper  heaven  as  the 
Pantheist,  or  Transcendental  Philosopher,  is  after  he  has  perfected  his 
*  state  of  not-knowing  when  he  begins  to  philosophize,'  to  rear  up  the 
superstructure  of  universal  being  and  its  laws.  We  appeal  to  the  common- 
sense,  and  to  the  scientific  insight,  of  the  world,  whether  the  cases  are 
not  perfectly  parallel,  and  whether  it  would  not  be  as  wise  for  us  to  agree 
to  accept,  for  our  eternity,  the  heaven  which  the  philosopher  can  construct 
out  of  absolute  emptiness,  as  it  would  be  for  us  to  accept  of  his  solutions, 
by  such  a  method,  of  the  great  problems  under  consideration  % 

Conditions  on  which   the  Eaob  oan  enjoy  the  Benefits  op  *thb 
Revelation  op  Absolute  Science.* 

It  is  not,  as  we  have  seen,  by  induction  and  deduction  that  even  the 
Yogee  and  Transcendental  Philosopher  receive  and  enjoy  the  benefits  of 
•the  revelation  of  absolute  science.'  It  is,  as  they  affirm,  exclusively 
through  b,  priori  insight,  by  means  of  the  special  *  faculty  of  intellectual 
intuition '  which  they  do,  and  the  world  does  not,  possess.  Neither  they 
nor  we  can,  by  appeals  to  facts  of  world-knowledge,  verify  that  revelation, 
nor  can  we,  who  want  the  special  faculty,  attain  to  said  revelation  by  in- 
tuition. If  we  would  enjoy  the  benefits  of  this  revelation,  we  must 
renounce  *  the  light  of  the  world,'  and  the  apostles  and  prophets,  and  all 
the  revelations  of  our  own  faculties,  and  receive  as  absolute  truth  the 
reported  dicta  of  the  special  faculty  of  the  Yogee  and  the  Transcendental 
Philosopher.  We  must  renounce  all  confidence  in  revelation  and  our 
own  intelligence,  and  assume  the  scientific  insight  of  the  Yogee,  and 
Schelling,  and  Spencer,  and  Emerson,  to  be  absolutely  infalliblet  We 
challenge  the  world  to  disprove  the  validity  of  these  statements.  We 
have  dwelt  thus  long  upon  this  one  department  of  the  Hindu  Philosophy, 
on  account  of  the  fundamental  bearings  of  oui  present  remarks  and  d&> 
ductions  upon  our  future  inquiriea. 


7—2 


lOO  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


SECTION"  HL 
THE  SEMI-ORTHODOX  SYSTEMS. 

The  Sankhta  %y  Kapila. 

The  object  of  this  system,  like  all  others  of  India,  is  to  induce  by  science 
absolute  mental  quietude  here,  and  real  non-being  hereafter.  The  Sankhya 
is  divided  into  two  parts,  the  metaphysical  and  logical.  What  we  shall 
say  upon  the  latter  topic  is  reserved  for  a  separate  section  in  which  we 
shall  speak  particularly  of  the  Hindu  Logic. 

To  understand  the  metaphj'^sics  of  the  Sankhya,  we  must  recur  to  the 
teachings  of  the  Vedanta  system.  According  to  its  teachings,  it  will  be 
recollected,  Brahm,  the  only  real  existence,  has  being  in  two  states,  the 
undeveloped,  or  original,  and  the  developed,  which  equals  nature.  Nature, 
as  Brahm  developed,  is  real,  and  is  illusory  but  when  regarded  as  con- 
stituted of  real  individual  and  separate  existences.  Brahm,  as  nature, 
appears  in  two  distinct  and  opposite  forms,  matter  and  spirit.  These,  as 
apprehended  by  us,  are  wholly  phenomenal  forms ;  the  reality  existing 
behind  all  appearance  and  constituting  its  form  and  substance  is  Brahm. 

Kapila,  in  the  Sankhya,  denies  absolutely  the  being  of  Brahm  as  the 
sole  existence  and  principle  of  all  things.  For  the  non-being  of  Brahm, 
as  the  author  and  principle  of  nature,  Kapila  presents  the  following 
affirmed  demonstration  :  *  The  act  of  creation  implies  a  pre-existing  desire 
to  create.  But  desire  implies  want,  or  imperfection,  which  is  incom- 
patible with  the  idea  of  Brahm  as  infinite.  Being  infinite  and  perfect, 
he  could  not  desire  to  create,  and  therefore  could  not  do  it.  Having  the 
desire,  he  could  not,  being  thus  finite  and  imperfect,  create  at  all.' 

Behind  the  phenomenal,  Kapila,  consequently,  postulates  two  eternally 
existing,  but  wholly  undefined  and  undeterminable  entities,  which  con- 
stitute the  sum  of  being,  and  the  principle  and  cause  of  phenomena,  to  wit : 
Prakiti,  as  matter  primordial  and  indeterminate,  and  Atma,  as  the 
ethereal  spirit,  which,  as  it  is  in  itself,  is  unknowable  and  unknown. 
From  the  action  and  reaction  of  these  two  unknown  and  unknowable 
entities  upon  each  other,  the  Prakiti  being  the  active  and  the  Atma  the 
passive  principle,  results  the  phenomenal  universe.  Phenomena  are  real 
as  emanations  from  the  Prakiti  and  Atma.  They  are  illusory  when 
considered  as  manifestations  of  real,  distinct,  and  separate  existences. 
When  the  soul  thinks  of  itself,  as  Prakiti  and  Atma  developed,  it  thinks 
of  itself  as  it  is.  When  it  tliinks  of  itself  as  a  distinct,  separate,  individual 
existence,  and  of  nature  around  as  constituted  of  real  distinct  forms  of 


THE  SEMI-ORTHODOX  SYSTEMS. 


lieing,  then  all  is  illusion.  The  phenomenal  universe  is  constituted  of 
three  orders  of  existences — that  above,  which  is  inhabited  by  beings 
superior  to  man,  and  among  whom  virtue  prevails  ;  that  below,  which  is 
inhabited  by  beings  inferior  to  man,  the  world  of  obscurity  and  illusion ; 
and  the  human  world,  where  passion  predominates,  and  misery  is  the 
result.  In  man,  as  a  phenomenal  existence,  distinct,  opposite,  and  con- 
tradictory qualities  exist  in  conflict,  qualities  eight  in  number,  as  virtue, 
knowledge,  impassibility,  power,  which  are  of  the  nature  of  goodness ; 
and  sin,  error,  incontinence,  and  weakness,  which  are  of  the  nature  of 
darkness.  The  intermingling  of  these  qualities  induces  passion  and 
misery,  the  present  condition  of  man.  What  man  desires  is  salvation, 
which  is  absolute  quietude  here  and  non-being  hereafter.  These  two 
states  the  Yogee  attains  by  science.  The  former  is  impossible  to  the  mass 
of  men  here,  and  the  latter  but  through  indefinite  transmigrations  hereafter. 
Salvation  is  attained  by  the  Yogee  through  the  revelation  of  absolute 
science,  the  revelation  in  which  he  recognizes  his  own  and  all  other  seem- 
ing individual  existences  as  illusions,  illusions  from  which,  at  death,  he  is 
to  be  for  ever  freed,  all  thought,  all  consciousness,  being  then  *  swallowed 
up  and  lost  in  tho  wide  womb  of  uncreated  night.' 

The  preliminary  process  preparatory  to  the  reception  of  this  revelation 
is  the  same  with  the  disciple  of  Kapila  as  with  the  Vedantist,  to  wit :  a 
voluntary  suspension  of  all  thought,  desire,  and  activity,  with  the  body 
in  a  sitting  posture,  the  neck,  the  head,  and  all  other  members  in  a  state 
of  perfect  stillness,  and  the  eyes  closed,  or  fixed  upon  the  end  of  the 
nose.  In  this  state  the  absolute  enfranchisement  of  absolute  science  is 
received.  The  manner  and  form  in  which  this  enfranchisement  is  re- 
ceived is  thus  given  in  the  work  from  which  we  have  so  frequently 
quoted  before  :  '  Salvation  is  the  being  set  free  from  the  bonds  in  which 
nature  has  enveloped  the  soul.* 

The  soul  becomes  free  from  these  bonds  by  recognizing  that  they  are 
nothing  but  phenomena,  or  appearances. 

Thus  it  begins  by  recognizing  that  the  gross  elements  are  something 
purely  phenomenaL  This  done,  it  is  freed  from  the  illusions  of  the 
body ;  nevertheless,  it  is  still  enchained  within  the  subtle  (incorporeal) 
person  through  which  its  individuality  is  maintained. 

But  next  it  recognizes  successively  that  the  principles  which  enter  into 
the  composition  of  the  incorporeal  person  are  nothing  but  illusions. 

In  the  first  place,  it  perceives  that  the  organs  of  sensation  and  of 
action,  and  the  five  subtile  particles,  that  is  to  say,  that  which  constitutes 
the  organism  of  individuality,  are  nothing  real 

But  it  is  still  implicated  in  self,  in  consciousness,  which  is  the  internal 
form  of  individuality.     From  this  it  is  in  like  manner  enfranchised. 

There  remains  no  longer  anything  but  the  root  of  individuality,  the 


I02  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Intelligence,  which,  as  a  particular  form  of  matter  or  Prakiti,  is  still 
something  determinate.  But  yet,  inasmuch  as  it  is  still  a  form,  it  is  also 
to  be  conceived  as  something  phenomenal. 

Disengaged  thus  at  last  from  all  which  produced  the  subtile  person,  the 
soul  is  set  free  from  all  the  bonds  of  nature.  Thus,  by  the  study  of  the 
principles  of  all  things,  science  conducts  to  this  definite,  incontrovertible 
sole  truth  :  Neither  do  I  exist,  nor  anything  which  pertains  to  myself.  All 
individual  existence  is  a  dream.     Such  is  the  enfranchisement  of  *  truth.' 

When  the  Yogee  has  fully  comprehended  the  fact  that  he  is  encom- 
passed with  nothing  but  illusions,  and  has  nothing  real  to  concern  him- 
self about,  then  a  state  of  perfect  quietude  arises,  a  state  of  absolute 
indifference  to  whatever  may  seemingly,  but  not  really  occur,  and  waits 
for  final  absorption  in  the  Prakiti. 

The  moral  teachings  of  the  *  Sankhya '  are  in  perfect  accordance  with 
its  essential  principles,  virtue  being  nothing  but  a  development  of  the 
Intelligence,  and  all  actions  being  alike  void  of  moral  character. 

The  Sankhya  system,  as  we  have  seen,  is  a, dualism,  admitting  of  two 
principles,  the  material,  Prakiti,  and  the  spiritual,  Atma,  or  the  soul. 
As  a  dualism,  this  system  differs  in  certain  particulars  from  all  other 
similar  systems.  In  other  systems  the  soul  is  active  and  matter  passive ; 
the  soul  a  unity  and  matter  the  multiple.  In  other  systems,  also,  there 
is  a  recognition  of  God  in  some  form.  The  reverse  of  all  this  obtains  in 
the  teachings  of  this  system.  According  to  it,  all  emanations  are  from 
the  material  principle,  which  is  one  and  not  many.  Souls,  on  the  other 
hand,  are  many.  In  the  final  consummation,  all  emanations  are  absorbed 
in  the  Prakiti,  and  souls  will  form  a  universe  of  atoms  where  no  original 
unity  is  found.  In  this  system,  also,  the  idea  of  God  wholly  disappears, 
and  is  not  recognized  even  as  a  regulative  principle. 

The  Sankhya  And  Vbdanta  Systems  Compared. 
While  there  is  in  the  development  of  the  former  system  more  of  the 
appearance  of  induction  than  in  that  of  the  latter,  the  method  of  both  in 
common  is,  in  all  essential  particulars,  d>  priori  From  what  is  intrinsic 
in  the  idea  of  Brahm,  the  latter  system  professedly  demonstrates  his 
existence  as  the  sole  principle  and  substance  of  all  things.  From  what  is 
intrinsic  in  the  same  idea,  the  former  system  argues,  with  affirmed  self- 
evident  truthfulness,  the  absolute  non-being  of  Brahm  as  such  principle 
and  substance.  While  the  latter  system,  without  proof  or  argument, 
assumes  Brahm  to  be  the  source  of  all  emanations,  the  latter,  in  the 
same  form,  assumes  the  Prakiti  to  be  that  source.  In  a  state  of  voluntary 
non-thought,  and  through  exclusive  d,  priori  intuition,  the  Vedantist 
receives  the  enfranchising  revelation  of  absolute  science — to  wit,  *  Brahm 
alone  exists ;  everything  else  is  illusion.'     In  the  same  state,  and  by 


THE  SEMI-ORTHODOX  SYSTEMS.  103 

means  of  the  same  identical  insight,  the  disciple  of  Kapila  receives  the 
equally  absolute  opposite  revelation — to  wit,  *!N"either  do  I  exist,  nor 
anything  which  pertains  to  myself  All  individual  existence  (even  that 
of  Brahm)  is  a  dream.'  Without  proof  or  argument,  the  latter  system 
assumes  the  existence  of  but  one  substance  or  principle  of  all  things.  In 
the  former  there  is  a  similar  assumption,  that  two  substances  or  principles 
do  exist.  In  justice  to  Kapila,  we  should  state  that  he  has  a  formal 
argument  to  prove  the  reality  not  of  the  human  soul,  but  of  the  uncreated 
spiritual  existence.  All  emanations  from  the  Prakiti,  he  assumes,  are 
manifestly  for  the  use  of  some  foreign  being,  who  can  be  no  other  than  a 
soul,  a  knowing  principle.  The  soul,  therefore,  as  distinct  from  phenomena 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  material  principle  on  the  other,  does  exist. 
This  argument  rests  upon  the  assumption,  that  the  material  principle, 
without  intelligence  or  design,  and  from  laws  inhering  in  itself,  acts  in 
the  production  of  emanation  in  absolute  conformity  to  the  wants  of 
a  foreign  reality  possessed  of  intelligence. 

Hindu  and  Modern  Dualism. 
The  doctrine  of  Dualism  will  demand  attention  from  time  to  time 
during  the  progress  of  our  investigations.  As  preparatory  to  a  full 
appreciation  of  what  will  be  presented  upon  the  subject,  it  may  be  well 
for  us  to  stop  here  for  a  few  moments,  and  compare  the  Hindu  with  the 
modern  system.  We  shall  find,  in  all  essential  particulars,  the  same 
identity  here  that  we  did  in  respect  to  the  doctrine  of  Pantheism.  On 
the  subject  before  us,  we  remark  : 

1.  Both  systems  agree  in  the  assumption,  that  two,  and  only  two, 
substances,  as  principles  of  all  things,  do  exist,  substances  denominated 
Prakiti  and  Atma  in  the  Hindu,  and  noumena,  as  subject  and  object,  in 
the  modern  system,  and  that  these  substances,  which  stand  behind  all 
phenomena,  are,  and  ever  must  be,  unknown.  We  need  not  cite  any 
passages  from  the  author  of  the  Sankhya  system,  in  addition  to  that  cited 
above,  to  show  that  such  are  the  teachings  of  that  system  upon  this  sub- 
ject. What  are  the  teachings  of  the  modern  system  upon  the  same 
subject  ?  *  We  are  not  acquainted  merely  obscurely,  but  not  at  all,'  says 
Kant,  *  with  the  quality  of  things  in  themselves.'  Again,  '  It  remains 
wholly  unknown  to  us  what  may  be  the  nature  of  objects  in  themselves.' 
*  We  know  nothing  but  our  manner  of  perceiving  them.'  Such  are  the 
united  teachings  of  all  dualists,  ancient  and  modern,  upon  this  subject. 

2.  Both  systems  agree  absolutely  in  teaching  that  all  our  world-know- 
ledge, objective  and  subjective,  is  exclusively  phenomenal  or  illusory. 
The  formula  of  the  Sankhya  is  this  :  *  Neither  do  I  exist,  nor  anything 
which  pertains  to  myself.  All  individual  existence  is  a  dream,'  an  illusion. 
The  formula  of  modern  Dualism  is  thus* expressed  by  Kant:  '  We  have, 


I04  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

therefore,  intended  to  say,  that  all  our  intuition  is  nothing  but  the  repre- 
sentation of  phenomenon — that  the  things  which  we  envisage '  (perceive 
and  think  about)  'are  not  that  in  themselves  for  which  we  take  them ; 
neither  are  their  relationships  so  constituted  as  they  appear  to  us.'  '  We 
know  nothing  but  our  manner  of  perceiving  thera.'  We  believe  in  our- 
selves, and  in  objects  around  us,  as  realities  in  themselves,  and  as  known 
as  they  are  in  themselves,  as  ELant  afiirms,  *  because  we  have  to  do  with 
unavoidable  illusions.' 

3.  In  the  Sankhya  system,  the  doctrine  of  God  is  formally  denied. 
In  modern  Dualism,  God,  like  time  and  space,  appears  but  as  *  a  regulative 
idea,'  a  law  of  thought.  When  we  think  of  God,  as  Kant  affirms,  'it  is 
only  a  being  in  idea  that  we  think.'  This  idea,  he  tells  us,  is  '  in  many 
respects  a  very  useful  idea.'  Modern  Dualism,  also,  expressly  identifies 
God  with  the  laws  of  nature.  In  reference  to  the  order  and  harmony  of 
the  universe,  *  it  must  be  the  same  thing  to  us,'  he  says,  *  when  we  per- 
ceive this,  to  say  that  God  has  so  wisely  decreed,  or  that  nature  has  wisely 
ordered  it.'  In  respect  to  the  doctrine  of  God,  as  the  Author  of  nature, 
either  by  emanation  or  creation  proper,  both  agree  in  absolutely  denying 
His  existence.  In  other  words,  both  in  common  are  absolutely  atheistical 
in  their  principles  and  teachinga 

4.  Both  systems  also  agree,  not  only  in  affirming  the  universe  of  per- 
ception, external  and  internal,  to  be  nothing  but  phenomena,  or  illusions, 
but  that  such  illusions  are  emanations  from  one  or  the  other  of  the  two 
original  substances  or  principles  of  all  things.  Creation,  as  it  appears  to 
us,  is,  according  to  the  Sankhya,  a  production  of,  or  emanation  from,  the 
Prakiti,  or  material  principle.  Creation,  according  to  the  modern  system, 
is  a  product  of,  or  emanation  from,  the  subjective  or  spiritual  principle. 
According  to  the  latter  system,  the  material  principle  is  passive  but  in 
the  origination  of  sensation  ;  according  to  the  former,  the  immaterial 
principle  is  passive  but  in  perceiving  the  emanations  from  the  Prakiti. 
Both  systems,  we  repeat,  agree  that  creation  is  by  emanation,  and  has 
no  existence  but  in  a  development  of  its  subject,  or  apart  from  the 
subject 

The  place  which  the  idea  of  God  has  in  the  two  systems  is  determined, 
we  remark  here,  by  the  peculiar  assumptions  in  regard  to  the  special 
source  of  emanations.  If  emanation  proceed,  as  the  Sankhya  system 
affirms,  from  the  material  principle,  there  is  no  place  for  God  in  the 
system.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  emanations,  as  the  modern  system  avers, 
proceed  from  the  immaterial  principle,  then  space,  time,  and  God  have 
place,  not  as  realities  in  themselves,  but  as  laws  of  thought,  regulative 
ideas,  the  place  which  they  do  occupy.  Both  systems  in  common  must 
deny  His  existence  as  Creator  proper. 

6.  The  two  systems  rest,  not  only  upon  an  assumption,  but  upon  one 


THE  SEMI-ORTHODOX  SYSTEMS.  105 

which  is  absurd  in  itself.  If  all  emanations,  or  illusions,  the  mind  and 
body  of  man  included,  proceed  from  the  Prakiti,  or  material  principle,  as 
affirmed  by  the  Sankhya  system,  not  even  a  conjectural  place  remains  for 
the  doctrine  of  souls.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  same  phenomena  proceed 
from  the  immaterial  principle,  as  affirmed  by  the  modern  system,  the  idea 
of  the  reality  of  the  mateiial  principle  has  not  even  conjectural  validity. 
That  principle  is  not  necessary  to  account  for  the  fact  of  sensation,  and 
its  reality  has  never  been  assumed  for  any  other  purpose.  The  doctrine 
of  the  sole  existence  of  two  entities,  as  the  exclusive  principles  of  all 
things,  is  not  self-evidently  valid ;  nor  do  even  Dualists  pretend  that 
that  doctrine  can  be  verified  by  induction.  The  doctrine  undeniably 
rests  upon  no  other  basis  than  a  mere  lawless  assumption — an  assumption, 
as  we  have  shown,  infinitely  absurd  in  itself. 

6.  Each  of  these  systems,  also,  rests  upon  another  common  assumption 
more  absurd,  if  possible,  than  the  one  just  presented — to  wit,  that  objects 
of  whose  reality  we  are  directly  and  absolutely  conscious  are  unreal,  while 
those  of  which  we  know,  and  can  know,  nothing  are  realities  in  themselves. 
Such  an  assumption  undeniably  has,  and  can  have,  no  self-evident  validity. 
Is  it,  can  it  be,  self-evident  that  the  consciously  real  does  not  exist  at  all, 
and  that  the  consciously  unknown  is  a  reality  in  itself  1  Equally  evident 
is  the  fact  that  this  assumption  cannot  be  verified  by  valid  proof  To 
accomplish  this  result  some  fact  must  be  adduced — a  fact  of  the  reality 
of  which  we  are,  and  must  be,  more  certain  than  we  are,  or  can  be,  of 
our  own  existence  and  of  that  of  objects  around  us — a  fact  absolutely 
incompatible  with  the  real  being  of  the  known  self  and  not-self.  Who 
does  not  absolutely  know  that  no  such  fact  can  be  discovered  ? 

7.  We  remark  once  more  that  the  method  of  induction  and  development, 
strictly  common  to  each  of  these  systems,  is  in  all  essential  particulars, 
and  that  exclusively,  b,  priori.  The  Yogee,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
modem  Dualist,  on  the  other,  ^puts  himself,  when  he  begins  to  philosophize, 
into  a  state  of  not  knowing,'  assuming  all  existing  forms  of  knowledge  to 
be  uncertain  and  illusory.  This  is  done  on  the  affirmed  authority  of 
ii  priori  insight.  He  then  looks  otf  into  boundless  space  and  infinite 
duration,  and  by  the  same  assumed  insight,  determines  what  realities 
and  facts  exist  and  occur  there.  From  the  elements  of  knowledge  thus 
obtained,  he  constructs  his  system  relatively  to  universal  being  and  its 
laws.  No  method  of  philosophizing  can  be  more  absurd  in  itself  and 
more  certain  to  culmiaate  in  fundamental  enoi; 


lo6  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


SECTIOl^  IV. 

THE  YOGA  SHASTRA  OF  PATANDJALL 

The  system  above  named  differs,  in  certain  particulars,  from  the  Vedanta 
on  the  one  hand,  and  from  the  Sankhya  system  on  the  other,  and  in 
particulars  equally  essential,  agrees  with  both.  For  the  sake  merely  of 
historical  completeness,  we  present  the  essential  features  of  this  system. 

1.  In  opposition  to  the  latter  system,  and  in  conformity  with  the 
former,  the  Yoga  Shastra  recognizes  the  being  and  government  of  God. 
Nor  is  the  sleep  of  Brahm  as  distinctly  recognized  in  this,  as  in  the 
Vedanta  system.  Patandjali  announces  the  doctrine  of  God  in  this 
formula :  *  God,  Iswara,  the  Supreme  Euler,  is  a  soul  distinct  from  aU 
other  souls,  inaccessible  to  the  evils  which  afflict  them;  indifferent  to 
actions  good  or  bad,  and  to  their  consequences,  and  to  the  ephemeral 
thoughts  of  men,  which  are  but  as  dreams.' 

2.  In  common  with  the  teachings  of  the  Vedanta,  and  in  opposition  to 
those  of  the  Sankhya^  the  Yoga  Shastra  teaches  that  final  salvation 
consists  in  absorption  in  God. 

3.  In  opposition  to  both  the  systems  named,  Patandjali  teaches,  that 
the  fiual  salvation,  the  common  end  of  all  systems,  is  to  be  attained,  not 
by  science,  but  exclusively  through  practices  of  devotion,  practices  which 
have  for  their  object  the  subjugation  of  the  mind  and  body.  The  sub- 
jugation of  the  mind  is  to  be  sought  by  voluntarily  inducing  states  of 
non-thought,  states  in  which  the  mind  thinks  of  no  particular  object 
whatever.  The  subjugation  of  the  body  is  secured  by  preventing  the 
senses  from  disturbing  the  non-thought  of  the  mind. 

4.  To  induce  this  utter  cessation  of  all  mental  and  physical  activity, 
the  pupil  of  the  Yoga  Shastra  resorts  to  the  same  identical  means  that 
the  Vedantist  and  the  disciple  of  Kapila  do  to  obtain  their  specific 
revelations  of  absolute  science.  By  a  voluntary  suspension  of  all  thought, 
desire,  and  mental  and  physical  activity,  with  the  body  in  a  fixed  and 
moveless  position,  and  the  eyes  centred  upon  the  end  of  his  nose,  the 
Vedantist  receives  one,  the  disciple  of  Kapila  another  and  contradictory 
revelation  of  absolute  science,  and  the  disciple  of  the  Yoga  Shastra 
receives  no  revelation  at  alL  What  is  the  reason  of  these  opposite  results 
from  the  same  real  cause  ]  "Why  is  it  that  things  so  apparently  equal  to 
the  same  things  turn  out  to  be  so  unequal  to  one  another  ?  The  reason, 
which  will  be  fully  explained  and  elucidated  hereafter,  is,  in  short,  un- 
deniably this  :  Each  enters  into  the  state  described  for  the  specific  purpose 
of  obtaining  the  identical  results  which  he,  then  and  there,  does  obtain. 


THE  VAIESCHIKA  SYSTEM  OF  KANADA.  107 

The  results  secured  are  all  predetermined,  and  the  Yogee  *  puts  himself 
into  the  state  of  not-knowing,*  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  those  pre- 
determined specific  results.  If  he  was  not  sure  of  experiencing  those 
specific  results,  he  would  never  put  himself  into  that  state. 

4.  The  method  of  induction  and  deduction,  and  the  moral  teachings  of 
all  the  three  systems  under  consideration,  are  identical.  The  method  is 
exclusively  b,  priori,  and  the  moral  teachings  confound  all  distinctions 
between  virtue  and  vice,  and  subvert  utterly  the  foundation  of  moral 
obligation. 

SECTION  V. 

THE  VAIESCHIKA  SYSTEM  OF  KANADA. 

According  to  the  Vedanta  and  Yoga  Shastra  systems,  God,  as  an  infinite 
spirit,  and  God  alone,  exists.  In  the  Sankhya  system,  the  being  of  God, 
as  such  a  spirit,  is  ignored  or  denied,  and  two  eternally  existing  and  self- 
acting  finite  principles,  the  material  and  spiritual,  are  substituted  in  their 
place.  Kanada  repudiates  the  doctrine  of  spiritual  existence  in  all  forms, 
and  postulates  the  material  principle  as  the  only  existing  substance. 
Matter  exists  in  two  forms,  as  atoms  and  as  aggregates.  The  former  are 
eternal,  the  latter  transient.  Each  atom  has  some  qualities  common  to 
all  others,  and  some  peculiar  to  itsel£  On  the  ground  of  this  unity  and 
diversity  in  atoms,  and  the  manner  of  their  aggregation  in  specific  cases, 
Kanada  accounts  for  the  varied  phenomena  of  nature.  Atoms  whose 
natures  are  predominantly  alike  mutually  attract  each  other  and  aggregate 
together.  Those  whose  natures  are  predominantly  opposite  repel  each 
other.  Thus  aggregates  distinct  and  separate  are  formed,  while,  by  means 
of  the  nature  common  to  all,  they  are  all  aggregated  together  in  the 
system  of  the  universe.  When  atoms  having  very  special  and  common 
peculiarities  aggregate,  they  form  bodies  which  manifest  the  phenomena 
of  animal  and  vegetable  vitality.  When  atoms  within  these  bodies, 
atoms  of  special  ethereal  peculiarities,  aggregate,  we  have  the  phenomena 
which  are  denominated  mental  life,  the  phenomena  of  thought,  feeling, 
and  willing.  Salvation  consists,  not  merely  in  the  dissolution  of  the 
body,  but  of  those  special  aggregates  from  which  mental  phenomena 
result.  The  Yogee  secures  this  result  by  science.  By  '  putting  himself 
into  the  state  of  not-knowing,'  above  described,  he,  then  and  there, 
receives  the  revelation  of  absolute  science — to  wit,  that  matter  only  is 
real ;  all  elsd  is  illusion.  This  ensures  salvation  at  death.  Other  indi- 
viduals, by  practices  of  devotion,  and  other  austerities,  obtain  for  them- 
selves short  and  favourable  transmigrations.  Those,  on  the  other  hand, 
who  neglect  science  and  such  devices,  must  pass  through  long  and  painful 


io8  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

transmigrations  before  the  end  desired  can  be  attained.  Here  we  have 
another  case  in  which  the  Yogee,  in  his  state  of  not-knowing,  obtains  a 
predetermined  result. 

The  method  of  science,  and  the  moral  teachings  of  the  Vaieschika, 
correspond  in  all  respects  with  those  of  the  systems  already  elucidated. 

The  atomic  theory  of  Kanada,  in  fundamental  particulars,  resembles, 
and  differs  from,  the  later-developed  system  of  Epicurus.  Both  agree  in 
the  assumption  that  matter  only  is  real,  and  exists  in  the  form  of  atoms, 
or  aggregates,  and  ''lat  atoms  are  eternal,  and  aggregates  of  transient 
duration.  According  to  Epicurus,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  atoms  are 
identical  in  nature,  but  diverse  in  form,  and  by  laws  of  motion  diverse 
forms  combine  and  separate,  and  thus  produce  the  phenomena  of  nature 
mental  and  physical  According  to  Kanada,  atoms,  aside  from  their 
common  properties,  are  diverse  from  one  another  both  in  form  and  nature, 
and  aggregate  and  separate,  by  reason  of  this  identity  and  diversity.  By 
no  h  priori  insight  can  we  determine,  on  the  hypothesis  that  one  of  these 
theories  must  be  true,  and  the  other  false,  which  is  to  be  preferred. 

On  h  priori  grounds  and  arguments,  also,  the  claims  of  all  the  systems 
which  we  have  considered  are  absolutely  balanced.  "We  have  just  as 
much  reason  to  assume  mind  to  be  the  only  existing  substance,  and  the 
exclusive  principle  of  all  things,  as  we  have  to  assume  matter  to  be  that 
substance  and  principle.  The  Materialist,  on  the  other  hand,  has  just  as 
much  ground  for  his  exclusive  assumption,  as  the  Idealist  has  for  his ; 
and  neither  has  any  reason  whatever  to  assume  that  matter  or  spirit  is 
the  only  form  of  real  being  1 


SECTION  VL 
THE  HINDU  LOaiO. 

The  logic  of  a  people  hardly  belongs  to  the  history  of  Philosophy. 
Yet  we  need  to  refer  to  their  logic  as  a  means  of  clearly  understanding 
their  progress  in  mental  culture.  Eor  this  reason  we  shall  make  a  few 
general  observations  upon  the  logic  by  which  the  learned  Hindu  re- 
ceives his  chief  intellectual  training.  The  special  subject  of  our  remarks 
will  be  the  Nyaya  system,  of  which  Gotama  was  the  author,  and  of 
which  the  Vaieschika  Philosophy  is  considered  as  the  complement.  We 
remark,  then : 

1.  To  show  how  exhaustively  the  science  of  Logic  is  treated  of  in  this 
Bystem,  we  present  the  following  enumeration  of  topics  which  are  therein 
discussed  and  elucidated:  *1.  Proof;  2.  The  objector  matter  of  proof; 
3.  Doubt;   4.  Motive;    5.  Example;  6.  Truth  demonstrated;  7.  The 


THE  HINDU  LOGIC.  109 


regular  ar<^ument ;  8.  Reduction  to  the  absurd  ;  9.  Acquisition  of  cer- 
tainty ;  10,  Debate;  11.  Conference,  or  interlocution ;  12.  Controversy; 
13.  Fallacious  assertion  ;  14.  Fraud  and  unfair  construction  ;  15.  Futile 
reply  ;  16.  Defect  in  argument.'  It  is  no  more  than  justice  to  Hindu 
thought  to  say  that  all  these  topics  are  ably  discussed  and  elucidated  in 
this  logic. 

2.  The  Hindu  syllogism,  though  not  so  simple  as  that  developed  by 
Aristotle,  and  which  we  employ,  yet  presents  a  complete  enumeration  of 
the  elements  which,  in  fact,  enter  into  almost  every  common  argument, 
and  is  hardly  less  effective  than  ours  when  contemplated  as  a  discipline 
of  thought  The  Hindu  syllogism,  or  complete  argument,  is  composed 
not  of  three,  as  ours  is,  but  of  five  members  :  the  proposition,  the  reason, 
the  example  in  illustration,  the  application,  and  final  conclusion.  The 
foUowiug  may  be  presented  as  a  fair  example  of  this  syllogism : 

*  1.  The  mountain  is  burning  \ 

2.  For  it  smokes ; 

3.  That  which  smokes  bums,  as  the  kitchen  fire  j 

4.  Accordingly  the  mountain  smokes ; 
6.  Therefore  it  burn&* 

3.  Among  no  people  is  the  principle  of  contradiction,  the  reduction  to 
the  absurd,  fallacies  of  assertion,  fraud  and  unfair  construction,  defects  of 
argument,  and  logical  consecutiveness  of  discourse,  and  other  kindred 
topics,  better  understood  than  among  the  learned  Hindus. 

Hence  it  is  that  among  no  people  on  earth  do  we  find  better-trained 
and  more  skilful  logicians  or  fairer  reasoners  in  debate  than  here.  In  an 
argument  with  an  opponent,  the  learned  Hindu  never  quibbles  about 
words,  or  takes  advantage  of  a  mere  mistake  of  his  antagonist.  The 
first  object  is  to  have  a  fair  and  common  understanding  of  the  subject 
matter  in  dispute.  Here  the  issue  is  joined  wholly  upon  the  tlwught 
itself,  as  all  understand  it.  discourse  of  one  party  has  logical  con- 

secutiveness throughout,  the  cpposite  party  will  freely  join  with  the 
audience  in  expressions  of  admiration  of  the  fact.  If  the  discourse  of 
the  missionary  has  these  characteristics,  such  men,  if  present,  will  openly 
commend  it  to  the  audience.  If  they  present  any  objections  or  difficulties 
in  respect  to  what  has  been  spoken,  and  receive  a  pertinent  reply,  one 
which  even  confounds  the  objector,  he  will  say  to  the  audience,  *  That  is 
admirably  said.'  If  the  missionary  finds  it  difficult,  from  ignorance  of 
the  language  in  which  he  is  speaking,  to  express  his  thoughts,  the  learned 
Hindu  will  help  him  to  accomplish  his  object,  and  wiU  lend  that  aid  in 
such  a  manner  as  to  evince  that  it  is  done  with  the  most  perfect  integrity. 
If  the  discourse  has  logical  consecutiveness,  it  will  be  openly  com- 
mended to  the  audience.    li^  in  the  judgment  of  the  learned  Hindu,  the 


A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


discourse  lacks  these  characteristics,  very  probably  a  conversation  in  this 
form  will  pass  between  him  and  the  speaker  : 

Brahmin :  Did  you  not,  in  such  a  part  of  your  discourse,  utter  such  a 
sentiment  1 

Missionary :  I  did,  sir. 

B,  Did  you  not,  in  another  part,  utter  such  a  sentiment  ? 

M.  I  did. 

B.  Did  you  not,  in  still  another  part,  utter  such  a  sentiment  ? 

M.  I  did. 

B.  There  is  a  contradiction  here,  sir.  Your  discourse  is  not  worthy 
of  our  regard. 

In  nine  cases  out  of  ten  the  missionary  will  stand  confounded  before 
the  audience.  Christian  men  deeply  read  in  the  things  of  God,  and 
those  profoundly  read  in  science,  and  especially  well-trained  logicians, 
such  men,  and  such  only,  are  qualified  to  grapple  with  learned  Hindu 
thought. 

No  class  of  trained  thinkers  so  nearly  resemble  each  other  in  funda- 
mental particulars  as  the  learned  Hindus  and  the  learned  Germans. 
Both  excel  all  other  peoples  in  systematizing  thought,  and  reasoning  with 
perfect  consecutiveness  from  admitted  premises.  If  you  start  with 
them  on  any  given  track,  you  must,  or  convict  yourself  of  l&gical  infidelity, 
enter  the  final  dep6t  with  them.  No  class  of  world-tl«nkers,  also,  so 
uniformly  construct  their  systems  upon  principles  valid  or  invalid,  princi- 
ples formally  laid  down.  On  the  other  hand,  no  class  of  world-thinkers 
are  so  reckless  as  they  in  the  induction  of  principles,  and  the  substitu- 
tion of  mere  lawless  assumptions  in  the  place  of  valid  principles  of  science. 
If  you  would  overthrow  the  system  of  a  Hindu  or  German  world-thinker, 
be  very  wary  indeed  about  assailing  his  logic  or  final  deductions. 
Always  scrutinize  with  profound  care  the  principles  which  lie  at  the 
foundation  of  the  system.  Here,  if  the  system  is  false,  is  to  be  found  the 
source  of  its  false  deductions,  as  well  as  its  utter  impotency. 

Two  fundamental  vices  very  commonly  characterize  systems  erected  by 
Anglo-Saxon  thought :  the  fact  that,  for  the  most  part,  they  are  not  in 
reality  or  form  based  upon  principles,  and  that  they  lack  logical  conse- 
cutiveness in  the  arrangement  of  their  parts,  the  parts  not  unfrequently 
being  incompatible  with  each  other.  Kant,  the  great  systematizer  of 
thought,  and  one  of  the  most  reckless  thinkers  that  ever  lived,  in  the 
induction  of  principles,  gave  form  to  German  learned  thinking.  Locke, 
who  repudiated  axioms,  or  principles,  as  useless  in  science,  gave  form  and 
direction  to  Anglo-Saxon  scientific  thought.  Hence  the  want  of  reference 
to  principles  in  the  construction  of  systems,  the  want  of  consecutiveness 
in  the  putting  of  the  parts  together,  and,  finally,  the  so  frequent  occur- 
rence of  absurd  contradictions.     We  have  no  training  in  logic  proper. 


THE  HINDU  LOGIC.  \\\ 


Our  logics,  with  very  few  exceptions,  pertain  but  to  classification,  and 
teach  us  to  reason  but  from  general  notions,  and  not  from  universal  and 
necessary  principles. 

In  India  educated  mind  is  now  being  directed  to  the  principles  on 
which  their  old  and  venerated  systems  are  based,  and  the  conviction  is 
becoming  widely  extended  that  those  principles  are  false,  and,  conse- 
quently, that  they  have  been  venerating  logical  fictions  instead  of  crea- 
tions of  truth.  This  is  the  ground-swell  which  is  now  heaving  up  the 
Philosophy  and  Heathenism  of  that  people,  and  will  soon  engulf  both 
in  a  common  destruction. 


SECTION"  VH. 
THE  HETERODOX  SYSTEMS. 

The  Djainas  and  Buddhistsl 

All  the  systems  which  we  have  thus  far  considered  were  professedly 
founded  upon  the  Yedas,  and  on  account  of  the  peculiar  language  of  these 
writings,  may  be  justly  regarded  as  conformed,  in  whole  or  in  part,  to 
their  professed  original.  We  now  advance  to  a  consideration  of  systems 
whose  authors  openly  and  avowedly  rejected  the  Vedas.  These  hetero- 
dox systems  bear  a  strong  resemblance,  in  many  respects,  to  those  which 
we  have  considered.  All  oriental  systems  were  developed  in  fixed  con- 
formity to  one  and  the  same  method,  and  with  few,  if  any  exceptions, 
teach  the  doctrine  of  transmigration.  In  all  essential  particulars,  also, 
they  agree  in  respect  to  the  doctrine  of  final  salvation,  as  consisting  in 
absorption  in  God,  or  in  a  final  absolute  sleep  of  the  soul,  a  sleep  which 
amounts  to  annihilation.  They  generally  agree,  also,  that  this  salvation 
is  to  be  attained  by  science,  or  good  works.  The  real  differences  between 
these  systems  pertain  almost  exclusively  to  questions  of  ontology.  Of 
the  heterodox  systems  of  India,  two  only  claim  our  attention — that  of 
the  Djainas,  and  that  of  the  Buddhists.  These  we  shall  consider  in  the 
order  named. 

L  The  Ststem  of  the  Djainas 

The  Greeks  mention  certain  philosophers  of  India  as  Gymnosophists. 
In  India,  they  are  called  Digamhoras,  which  means,  devoid  of  clothing. 
As  ontologists,  the  Djainas  hold  the  doctrine  of  Materialism  in  its  strictest 
form.  In  their  exposition  of  this  doctrine,  they  differ  from  Kanada,  the 
author  of  the  Vaieschika,  and  agree  strictly  with  Epicurus.  The  universe, 
material  and  mental,  they  hold,  is  constituted  wholly  of  identical  or 
homogeneous  atoms.     Diversity  of  forms  of  existence  arise  wholly  from 


112  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PH/LOSOPHY. 

diversity  of  combination  of  the  original  elements.  Forms  of  existence 
are  divided  into  two  classes,  the  inanimate  and  animate,  the  latter  being 
the  subjects,  and  the  former  the  objects  of  knowledge  and  happiness. 
Animated  beings  are  constituted  of  four  elements — earth,  water,  fire,  and 
air,  which  are  themselves  aggregates  of  the  primitive  elements.  Accord- 
ing to  Mr.  Huxley,  and  scientists  of  his  school,  animated  beings  are 
constituted  of  '  carbonic  acid,  water,  and  ammonia.'  'No  essential 
difference  obtains  between  the  ancient  and  modern  schools,  the  form  of 
the  teachings  of  the  latter  being  more  nearly  conformed  to  the  nature 
and  revelations  of  modern  science.  Animated  beings  are  also  eternal, 
but  material  and  mental  phenomena  result  wholly  from  'molecular 
changes  in  the  matter  of  life.'  That  material  thing  called  the  soul  may 
exist,  they  hold,  in  either  of  three  states — a  state  of  bondage  through  its 
own  activity,  a  state  of  freedom  from  the  necessity  of  action,  and  a  state 
of  perfection  in  which  all  activity  of  every  kind  for  ever  ceases.  Their 
teachings  in  respect  to  the  causes  which  impede  or  facilitate  the  advance 
of  the  soul  from  a  state  of  bondage,  through  freftdom,  to  fiual  perfection, 
differ  in  no  essential  particulars  from  those  of  the  Hindu  schools  generally, 
and  differ  from  them  only  so  far  as  is  required  by  diversity  of  ontological 
teachings.  Nothing  further  need  be  added  in  respect  to  the  system  of 
this  schooL 

n.  The  Buddhists. 

The  term  Buddha  means,  to  know,  or,  the  'Intelligent  One.'  The 
author  of  the  Buddhist  system  was  the  son  of  a  king,  who  reigned  some 
six  or  seven  centuries  before  Christ,  in  a  country  north  of  Central  India, 
and  is  known  by  several  names,  as  Siddortha  the  Buddha,  Sakhya-mani 
the  Buddha,  and  Gautama  the  Buddha — that  is,  the  Knowing  One. 
Having  exhausted  all  the  luxuries  of  life,  in  his  twenty-ninth  year,  he 
abandoned  his  palace,  his  family,  and  all  forms  of  sensual  gratification, 
and  having  put  on  a  shroud  taken  from  the  dead  body  of  a  female  slave, 
he  commenced  the  life  first  of  an  anchoret,  then  of  a  public  teacher,  and 
finally,  of  a  dictator  of  professedly  inspired  utterances,  which,  as  published 
by  the  Chinese  Government  in  four  languages,  consists  of  some  800 
volumes.  Two-fifths  of  the  race  hold  the  doctrines  of  Gautama,  the  Know- 
ing One.  Disgusted  with  the  mutabilities,  miseries,  and  momentariness 
of  life,  oppressed  with  the  conviction  that  conscious  existence  is  a  curse, 
he  cried  out,  from  the  depth  of  his  inner  being,  for  what  is  real,  stable, 
permanent  How  could  a  revelation  of  this  absolute  good  be  obtained  ? 
Not  by  reasoning,  or  speculation,  or  reflective  thought ;  but  by  direct, 
immediate,  intuitive  knowledge.  The  reality  must  be  seen  in  order  to  be 
known.  To  prepare  himself  for  the  reception  of  this  revelation  of  abso- 
lute truth  was  the  object  of  all  his  fastings,  self-inflictions,  and  non-thought 


THE  HETERODOX  SYSTEMS.  I13 

meditations.  After  a  whole  week  of  deep  meditation,  after  remaining 
seated  under  a  tree,  without  motion,  and  with  his  face  to  the  east,  for  a 
night  and  a  day,  he  received  the  revelation  which  he  was  seeking.  All 
illusions  passed  away  j  he  became  *  wide  awake  ;'  the  reality  was  directly 
before  him,  and  he  became  Buddha,  the  Knowing  One.  What  is  the 
absolute  truth  thus  revealed  to  Gautama  %  As  taught  by  him,  and  as 
received  by  all  Buddhists,  this  doctrine,  in  the  language  of  Mr.  J.  F. 
Clarke,  in  his '  Ten  Great  Eeligions,'  is  all  embraced  in  the  four  following 
propositions  : 

1.  All  existence  is  evil,  because  all  existence  is  subject  to  change  and 
decay. 

2.  The  source  of  this  evil  is  the  desire  for  things  which  are  to  change 
and  pass  away. 

3.  This  desire,  and  the  evils  which  follow  it,  are  not  inevitable ;  for,  if 
we  choose,  we  can  arrive  at  Nirvana,  where  both  shall  wholly  cease. 

4.  There  is  a  fixed  and  certain  method  to  adopt,  by  pursuing  which 
we  attain  this  end,  without  possibility  of  failure. 

These  four  truths  are  the  basis  of  the  system.    They  are — 1st,  the  evil; 
2nd,  its  cause;  3rd,  its  end;  4th,  the  way  of  reaching  this  end. 
Then  follow  the  eight  steps  of  this  way,  namely : — 

1.  Right  belief,  or  correct  faith. 

2.  Right  judgment,  or  wise  application  of  that  faith  to  life, 

3.  Right  utterance,  or  perfect  truth  in  all  that  we  say  or  dow 

4.  Right  motives,  or  proposing  always  a  proper  end  and  aim. 

5.  Right  occupation,  or  an  outward  life  not  involving  sin. 

6.  Right  obedience,  or  faithful  observance  of  duty. 

7.  Right  memory,  or  a  proper  recollection  of  past  conduct 

8.  Right  meditation,  or  keeping  the  mind  fixed  on  permanent  truth. 

After  this  system  of  doctrine  follow  certain  moral  commands  and  pro- 
hibitions, namely,  five  which  apply  to  all  men,  and  five  others  which 
apply  only  to  novices  or  monks.  The  first  five  commandments  are — 
1st,  Do  not  kill ;  2nd.  Do  not  steal ;  3rd.  Do  not  commit  adultery ; 
4th.  Do  not  lie  ;  5th.  Do  not  become  intoxicated.  The  other  five  are — 
Ist.  Take  no  solid  food  after  noon ;  2nd.  Do  not  visit  dances,  singing, 
or  theatrical  representations ;  3rd.  Use  no  ornaments,  as  perfumery  in 
dress;  4th.  Use  no  luxurious  beds;  5th.  Accept  neither  gold  nor 
silver. 

The  central  doctrine  of  Buddhism  is,  that  the  fundamental  condition  of 
attaining  Nirvana  is  merit.  All  things  are  governed  by  eternal  and  im- 
mutable laws  ;  but  these  laws  immutably  determine  human  destiny  in 
conformity  with  one  idea,  ni&r'\i.     If  our  conduct  is  good,  or  meritorious, 

8 


114  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Nirvana,  or  non-being,  is  to  us  a  necessary  certainty.  If  our  actions  are 
unmeritorious,  or  wicked,  the  same  laws  as  necessarily  determine  for  us 
an  eternal  existence  in  hell.  The  merit  of  all  actions,  also,  depends 
upon  the  motive^  and  the  motive,  to  be  right  must  be  purely  disinterested. 
Kindness  done  to  any  being  is  meritorious.  But  to  do  good  to  the  vilest 
is  more  meritorious  than  it  is  to  do  the  same  thing  to  the  best  of  men,  the 
motive  in  such  case  being  the  more  disinterested.  For  the  same  reason  it 
is  more  meritorious  to  do  good  to  a  beast  than  to  a  man,  and  to  the  vilest 
of  beasts  than  to  the  most  useful.  Hence  it  is  that  Buddhists  show 
supreme  kindness  to  such  creatures  as  sharks,  tigers,  hawks,  and  venomous 
serpents.  To  merit  Nirvana,  a  Buddhist  gave  his  own  body  to  be  devoured 
by  a  famishing  tigress.  When  a  Buddhist,  or  other  religionist  in  India, 
desires  to  violate  a  moral  principle,  he  finds  in  the  expositions  of  his 
sacred  books  definitions  and  elucidations  which,  like  the  traditions  of  the 
elders,  make  void  every  moral  principle,  and  render  it  even  meritorious 
to  violate  it.  A  lie,  for  example,  is  defined  as  that  which  tends  to  evil, 
and  truth,  as  that  which  tends  to  good.  If,  then,  perjury  will  secure  a 
desired  end — saving  the  life  of  a  friend,  for  example — perjury  is  truth, 
and  true  testimony  a  lie.  In  all  India  the  English  judges  have  failed  to 
find  a  man  whose  oath  is  reliable  in  any  case  wherein  the  individual  has 
an  interest  which  he  can  ensure  by  perjury.  The  same  is  true  in  the  case 
of  all  moral  principles  in  common.  These  religions  are  throughout  irre- 
ligious, and  their  morality  is  immoral.  In  Buddhism  in  all  its  forms, 
God  and  a  world  of  superior  beings  are  either  wholly  ignored  or  denied. 
The  only  object  of  religious  worship  is  Gautama,  the  Buddha.  By 
attaining  to  absolute  knowledge  he  has  not  only  attained  to  Nirvana,  or 
utter  inactivity,  but  has  made  himself  infinite.  In  the  worship  of  such 
a  being — a  being  who  has  by  knowledge  and  desert  attained  to  absolute 
nothingness — there  is,  they  assume,  infinite  merit. 

Our  main  concern,  however,  is  not  with  Buddhism  as  a  religion,  but 
with  its  philosophical  systems.  The  sacred  writings  of  this  sect,  like 
those  of  the  Hindus,  have  given  rise  to  certain  systems  of  philosophy  to 
a  consideration  of  which  special  attention  is  now  invited.  Before  pro- 
ceeding to  the  accomplishment  of  this  object,  permit  us  to  state  the 
following  fact,  the  bearing  of  which  upon  our  present  inquiries  will  be 
at  once  apprehended.  About  forty  years  since  Dr.  Bradley,  who  had 
spent  a  long  time  as  a  missionary  in  Siam,  revisited  his  native  country, 
bringing  with  him  his  motherless  children.  Among  these  were  two 
daughters,  one  eight  and  the  other  some  ten  or  twelve  years  of  age. 
While  these  daughters  were  at  my  house  in  Oberlin,  I  invited  them,  not 
for  their  profit,  but  amusement,  to  attend  one  of  my  lectures.  The  subject 
of  the  lecture  was  the  German  Philosophy.  My  object  was  to  explaiu 
to  the  class  the  diverse  systems  of  Kant,  Fichte,  Schelling,  and  Hegel. 


THE  HETERODOX  SYSTEMS.  it; 

I  noticed  with  surprise  that  those  children  listened  with  the  intensest 
interest  to  all  I  said.  Meeting  with  Dr.  Bradley  a  day  or  two  after- 
wards, he  told  me  that  on  his  return  to  his  lodgings  he  found  his  daughters 
engaged  in  a  very  earnest  conversation  about  the  lecture.  He  found,  also, 
that  they  fully  comprehended  all  they  had  heard.  They  then  explained 
to  him  the  four  German  systems  referred  to,  and  showed  how  perfectly 
they  corresponded  with  that  which  they  had  heard  him  and  others  so 
often  explain  as  being  taught  in  Siam  and  Hindostan.  *  You  know,'  said 
one  of  them  to  the  other,  '  the  questions  I  put  to  you  as  we  were  entering 
the  harbour  at  St.  Helena.  When  you  expressed  such  delight  at  the 
scenery  around,  I  asked  you  how  you  knew  that  there  was  any  such 
objects  there  as  you  seemed  to  perceive?  "  How  do  you  know,"  I  asked, 
'•  but  that  all  these  objects  are  nothing  but  ideas  and  feelings  in  your 
own  mind  ]"  '  This  conversation,  of  course,  induced  me  to  obtain  from 
Dr.  Bradley  a  full  exposition  of  these  Indian  systems — systems  which  he 
had  profoundly  studied.  When  I  have  found  the  expositions  of  such 
missionaries  fully  confirmed  by  all  that  I  have  read  in  the  ablest  state- 
ments of  the  same  systems  as  given  in  books,  I  feel  assured  that  I  am,  in 
no  essential  respects,  misleading  the  reader  in  my  own  expositions.  Let 
us  now  consider  those 

BxjDDHiST  Systems  op  Philosopht. 

Among  these  systems  three  only  demand  particular  elucidation,  and 
these  we  will  present  in  the  following  orden 

Fwre  Idealism. 

One  of  the  chief  schools  holds,  in  its  strictest  forma,  t!i©  system  of 
Pure  Idealism — the  system  which  denies  the  reality  of  all  substances 
finite  and  infinite,  and  resolves  all  real  existences  into  pure  ideas.  The 
language  employed  by  this  school  induced  early  Orientalists  to  impute  to 
it  the  doctrine  of  absolute  Nihilism.  Its  philosophers  speak  of  vacuum 
and  non-being  as  representing  their  doctrine,  forms  of  language  not 
employed  even  by  any  sect  who  denies  the  reality  of  matter,  but  admits 
that  of  spiritual  substances.  Maturer  inquiries  have  evinced  that  by 
such  forms  of  speech,  these  philosophers  intend  to  deny  merely  the  reality 
of  all  forms  of  existence  as  substances,  especially  as  material  substances. 
While  this  school  wholly  denies  the  reality  of  matter  in  all  its  forms,  it 
admits  that  of  spiritual  existences  only  as  ideal  forms  of  being.  In  this 
school  Idealism  has  reached  its  full  and  final  consummation.  At  the 
basis  of  aU  other  systems  we  have  real  substances,  material  or  mental, 
known  or  unknown.  Pure  Idealism,  under  the  assumption  that  being 
and  knowing  must  be  one  and  identical,  takes  away  all  substances  in 

8—2 


Ii6  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY, 

common,  and  affirms  ideas  with  their  necessary  laws  to  be  alone  real. 
Such  is  the  final  development  of  Idealism  in  India. 

Subjective  Idealism. 
Idealism  in  another  form  presents  itself  among  the  Buddhist  systems. 
Pantheism  and  Pure  Idealism  begin  with  the  Infinite  and  Absolute,  as 
substance  or  idea,  and  deduce  from  the  same,  as  ideal  existences,  all  finite 
forms  of  being.  Subjective  Idealism,  on  the  other  hand,  begins  with  the 
individual  finite  self,  as  the  eternal  and  sole  reality,  and  deduces  all 
phenomena,  and  even  time,  space,  and  God,  as  ideal  existences,  from  this 
finite  self.  The  former  schools  deduce  the  Finite  from  the  Infinite.  This 
school  deduces  the  Infinite  from  the  Finite.  Subjective  Idealism,  in  its 
most  perfect  forms,  is  taught  in  one  of  the  leading  Buddhist  schools.  To 
the  teachings  of  that  school  Fichte  and  his  successors  have,  in  fact,  added 
nothing.  The  method  and  ontological  deductions  of  the  ancient  find 
their  perfect  counterparts  in  those  of  the  modern  system.  Each  school 
distinguishes  between  the  real  and  the  ideal  self,  the  eternal  substance 
which  lies  at  the  basis  of  all  phenomena,  and  the  conscious  self.  This  last, 
in  common  with  all  apparent  existences  around,  has  only  an  ideal  exist- 
ence. This  ideal  self,  the  I  of  consciousness,  becomes,  according  to  the 
teachings  of  the  Buddhist  system,  reabsorbed  in  the  real  self,  and  thus 
becomes  wholly  inactive,  on  the  same  condition  on  which  unconscious 
non-being  is  obtained  according  to  other  systems. 

The  Buddhist  Material  Systems. 

In  opposition  to  both  of  the  above  systems,  another  school  of  Buddhist 
■world- thinkers  maintain,  in  its  strictest  and  most  exact  forms,  the  doctrine 
of  Materialism.  According  to  the  united  teachings  of  all  sections  of  this 
school,  all  our  knowledge  is  through  sensation  and  external  perception. 
At  this  point  the  school,  in  accordance  with  the  diverse  and  opposite 
teachings  of  modem  Materialism,  in  its  different  forms,  divides  into  two 
sections. 

According  to  the  first,  our  knowledge  of  matter,  as  far  as  its  essential 
characteristics  are  concerned,  is  direct  and  immediate,  and,  therefore, 
valid  for  the  reality  and  character  of  its  objects.  As  perceived,  matter 
exists  as  aggregates,  or  compounds.  But  aggregates  imply  the  simple,  or 
atoms*  Each  aggregate  derives  its  properties,  or  qualities,  from  the  nature 
of  the  atoms  of  which  it  is  constituted.  As  aggregates  or  forms,  matter 
has  only  a  temporary  existence.  As  original  atoms,  it  is,  with  its  neces- 
sary laws,  eternal.  Forms  are  phenomenal,  and  cease  to  exist  when  not 
perceived.  Atoms,  we  repeat,  are  eternal,  and  are  constantly  entering 
into  new  forms. 

The  other  section  of  this  school  teach  that  our  knowledge  of  matter  is 


THE  HETERODOX  SYSTEMS.  I17 

indirect,  and  mediate,  through  sensation.  From  sensation  as  effect,  in 
accordance  with  Caudilac  and  his  associates  in  France,  this  section  of 
Buddhist  Materialism  reason,  by  induction,  to  matter  as  the  object  and 
cause  of  sensation.  Having,  by  opposite  processes  of  deduction,  come  to 
common  conclusions  in  respect  to  the  doctrine  of  matter  itself,  as  to  its 
aggregate  and  atomic  forms,  both  sections  fully  agree  in  their  subsequent 
expositions  of  that  doctrine.  Both  deny  the  being  of  God,  excepting  as 
a  law  of  matter,  and  also  of  the  soul,  excepting  as  a  phenomenon  of 
atomic  combination.  The  soul,  as  a  material  form,  may  be  of  temporary 
or  eternal  duration.  By  merit,  sensation,  and  with  it  all  mental  pheno- 
mena, may  for  ever  cease.  By  demerit  the  soul  may  entail  upon  itself 
an  eternal  existence  in  helL 

Eelations  op  the  Buddhist  and  Hindu  Systems  to  bach  Other. 
The  reader  will  readily  apprehend  the  relations  to  each  other  of  the 
Hindu  and  Buddhist  systems.  The  orthodox  systems  of  the  former  all 
agree  in  the  doctrine  of  God  as  the  only  real  existence.  All  those  of  the 
latter  either  wholly  ignore  or  deny  the  doctrine  of  a  Supreme  Being. 
Final  salvation,  according  to  both,  is  absolute  and  eternal  unconscious- 
ness, or  inaction  of  every  kind,  a  state  equivalent  to  annihilation.  This 
state,  according  to  the  former  system,  is  attainable  at  death  by  science, 
through  shortened  and  favourable  transmigrations  after  death,  by  good 
works,  and  after  long  and  unhappy  transmigrations,  as  a  consequence  of 
a  wicked  life.  The  only  condition  of  attaining  this  state,  according  to 
the  latter  system,  is  merit,  or  the  desert  of  annihilation.  According  to 
the  former  system,  all  ultimately  are  saved,  that  is,  annihilated.  Accord- 
ing to  the  latter,  none  but  the  meritorious  do,  or  can,  attain  this  high 
consummation.  According  to  the  former  system,  the  wicked  are  miser- 
able only  for  an  indefinite  period.  According  to  the  latter,  they  are,  or 
may  be,  all  miserable  to  eternity.  According  to  both  systems,  no  being 
is  worshipped  from  sentiments  of  real  piety,  but  wholly  from  subjective 
considerations,  ultimate  unconsciousness  01  annibilatioa. 


SECTION  VIIL 

GENERAL  REMARKS  UPON  THE  INDIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

1.  In  none  of  these  systems  is  there  the  remotest  recognition  of  the 
doctrine  of  a  personal  God,  of  God  as  possessed  of  moral  perfections,  or 
as  exercising,  in  any  proper  sense,  a  moral  government  over  a  realm  of 
moral  agents.  Nor  is  there,  in  any  of  these  systems,  any  recognition  of 
the  doctrine  of  creation  proper.  The  doctrine  of  God  is  either  ignored, 
denied,  or  recognized  but  in  the  pantheistic  sense.     K  God  is  recognized 


Il8  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

at  all,  he  is  identified  with  Nature,  and  I^ature  with  him.  Creation,  too, 
is  ascribed  to  God  in  but  one  exclusive  sense — emanation.  Nor  is  God 
presented  in  any  of  these  systems  as,  in  any  proper  sense,  an  object  of 
worship,  worship  from  sentiments  of  gratitude,  love,  or  adoration.  All 
religious  service,  when  performed  at  all,  has  exclusive  reference  to  per- 
sonal ends.  The  Yogee,  having  by  science  attained  the  end  he  seeks, 
does  not  worship  at  all.  The  religionist  goes  through  his  ceremonials  for 
the  same  exclusive  personal  end  for  which  the  Yogee  attains  scientific 
intuition.  Nor  is  there  a  solitary  attribute  ascribed  to  God,  in  any  of 
these  systems,  which  renders  Him  a  proper  object  of  love,  praise,  or 
worship.  When  the  passage,  *  Behold,  what  manner  of  love  the  Father 
hath  bestowed  upon  us,  that  we  should  be  called  the  sons  of  God,'  was 
read  to  a  learned  Hindu,  he  wept  like  a  child  in  the  presence  of  the 
divine  idea.  The  idea  of  God  as  a  Father,  and  of  mankind  as  His  *  sons 
and  daughters,'  had  never  through  his  philosophy  or  religion  approached 
his  mind.  Natural  evil,  as  an  object  of  fear,  is  the  only  motive  for 
action  in  any  form,  a  motive  presented  by  any  of  these  systems.  Evil, 
and  only  evil,  continually,  evil  in  its  natural  form  necessarily  attaches 
to  conscious  being  in  all  conditions,  evil  the  only  escape  from  which  is 
non-being. 

2.  Nor  has  morality,  in  its  true  and  Christian  form,  any  place  in  any 
of  these  systems,  morality  in  the  form  of  love  to  God  and  goodwill  and 
benevolent  activity  towards  man.  The  Yogee  who  has  attained  to  abso- 
lute perfection  inspires  his  fellow-creatures  around  him  with  but  one 
sentiment  in  regard  to  himself,  dread  of  his  curse.  Keligious  perfection 
in  its  highest  form  is  £is  compatible  with  the  life  of  a  Thug  as  with  any 
other  form  of  activity.  In  most  of  these  systems  moral  obligation  is  not 
only  ignored  but  denied.  In  all  of  them,  when  God  is  acknowledged, 
He  is  represented  as  indiflferent  to  the  character  of  all  human  activity  in 
common.  With  the  Hindu,  the  act  of  killing  a  cobra  di-capella  is  far  more 
dreaded  than  that  of  killing  a  man,  and  perjury  is  truth  when  contem- 
plated as  a  means  of  attaining  a  desired  end.  With  the  Buddhist,  whose 
system  is  professedly  a  moral  one,  merit  is  least  when  kindness  is  shown 
to  the  best,  greater  when  shown  to  the  worst,  of  men,  still  greater  when 
shown  to  a  brute,  greater  still  when  shown  to  the  most  venomous  of  all 
the  animal  creation,  and  reaches  perfection  when  one  gives  his  own  body 
to  be  devoured  by  a  famishing  tigress  and  her  cubs.  Moral  virtue,  in 
its  personal  form,  does  not  consist  m  total  abstinence  from  what  is  hurtful 
and  wrong  in  itself,  and  in  the  temperate,  self-controlled,  use  of  what 
God  has  'created  to  be  received  with  thanksgiving,*  but  in  all  possible 
forms  of  abstinence  from  the  good  and  evil  alike.  Perfection  consists 
not  in  self  controlled  enjoying,  doing,  and  enduring  what  infinite  wisdom 
and  love  appoints  us,  but  in  absolute  indifference  to  good  and  evil,  in 


GENERAL  REMARKS  UPON  THE  INDIAN  PHILOSOPHY.     119 

all  their  forms  alike,  that  is,  not  in  the  rigkt  use,  but  in  the  non-use,  of 
our  faculties. 

3.  In  the  different  philosophical  schools  of  India  we  have,  Scepticism 
excepted,  all  forms  of  the  anti-theistic  philosophy  that,  in  any  age  or 
nation,  have  been  developed  by  human  thought.  We  have  these  systems, 
also,  in  absolute  perfection  of  development.  Even  modern  thought  has 
not  added  a  single  essential  element  to  these  systems  of  India.  In  the 
Hindu  schools,  fur  example,  and  in  that  of  the  Djainas  and  Buddhists, 
■we  have  Materialism  in  every  form  known  to  the  history  of  Philosophy. 
In  the  Dualism  of  Kapila  we  have,  in  perfection  of  development,  that  of 
Kant.  The  German  thinker  has  been  fully  anticipated  by  his  Hindu 
predecessor.  In  the  Pantheism  of  the  Vedanta,  we  have  the  substance 
of  which  the  Pantheism  of  Schelling  and  of  his  successors  is  *  the  exact 
image.'  In  the  two  idealistic  schools  of  Buddhism,  we  have  Subjective 
and  Pure  Idealism,  in  specific  forms  of  development  to  which  Fichte  and 
Hegel,  and  their  schools,  have  added  little  or  nothing.  Kapila  and  the 
Buddhist  schools,  by  teaching  that  all  our  knowledge  is,  in  fact  and  form, 
exclusively  phenomenal,  and  that  substances,  as  they  exist  in  themselves, 
are  and  ever  must  be  unknown,  have  given  the  fixed  formula  of  Scepti- 
cism in  all  subsequent  ages.  Of  the  anti-theistic  systems  of  these  and 
subsequent  ages  it  may  be  said  with  absolute  truth  :  *  The  thing  that 
hath  been,  it  is  tliat  which  shall  be ;  and  that  which  is  done  is  that  which 
shall  be  done  :  and  there  is  no  new  thing  under  the  sun.  Is  there  any 
thing  whereof  it  may  be  said.  See,  this  is  new  1  it  hath  been  already  of 
old  time,  which  was  before  us.'  JKTor  is  it  possible  to  conceive  of  an 
anti  theistic  system  developed  in  a  form  diverse  from  any  and  all  those 
developed  by  Indian  thought.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  Scepticism  has 
no  place  in  oriental  thought.  All  its  systems  are  positive.  While  it  has, 
as  shown,  given  the  form  of  Scepticism,  oriental  thought  never  developed 
doubt  in  systematic  form.  Scepticism,  as  a  system,  was  originated,  as  we 
shall  see  hereafter,  by  the  Grecian  mind. 


SECTION  IX. 

THE  CHINESE  PHILOSOPHY. 

China  has  produced  one,  and  only  one,  world-renowned  philosopher,  Lao- 
Tseu,  and  but  one  world-famous  teacher  of  morals,  Confucius.  The  latter 
avowedly  confined  himself  to  moral  teachings.  The  sentiment  which  he 
continually  repeated  to  his  hearers  was  this :  *  I  teach  you  nothing  which 
you  might  not  learn  for  yourselves,  if  you  would  only  make  a  proper  use 
of  the  faculties  of  your  own  minds.     Nothing  is  more  natural,  nothing 


120  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

more  simple,  than  the  principles  of  morality  which  I  endeavour  to  incul- 
cate in  its  salutary  maxims.' 

Lao-Tseu,  on  the  other  hand,  was  the  founder  of  a  system  of  philosophy, 
a  system,  however,  borrowed  from  the  same  sources,  and  having  the  same 
essential  characteristics,  as  those  originated  by  his  Indian  neighbours. 
For  Brahm,  he  substituted  a  sublime  and  indefinable  being,  whom  he 
denominated  Eeason.  This  Eeason,  in  the  language  of  Lao-Tseu,  is  '  the 
principle  of  all  things.'  *The  (primordial)  reason,'  he  says,  *can  be 
subject  to  reason  (as  expressed  by  words) ;  but  it  is  a  supernatural 
reason.  Without  a  name  it  is  the  principle  of  heaven  and  earth  ;  with  a 
name,  it  is  the  mother  of  the  universe.  It  is  necessary*  to  be  without 
passions  in  order  to  contemplate  its  excellence ;  with  passions  we  contem- 
plate only  its  less  perfect  state.  There  are  but  two  ways  of  designating 
a  single  unique  source,  which  may  be  termed  impenetrable  depth.  This 
abyss  contains  all  the  most  perfect  beings.  Before  chaos,  which  preceded 
the  birth  of  heaven  and  earth,  there  existed  but  one  sole  being,  infinite 
and  silent,  immutable,  always  acting,  yet  never  changing.  We  may 
regard  it  as  the  mother  of  the  universe.  I  know  not  its  name,  but  I 
designate  it  by  the  word  reason.^  So  in  the  Hindu  system  we  read  : 
*  Brahm  existed  eternally,  the  first  substance — infinite — the  pure  unity.' 
Again,  *  He  is  the  one  eternal,  pure,  rational,  unlimited  being,'  So  also, 
as  evincing  a  similar  identity  of  idea  and  representation,  says  modern 
Pantheism :  '  Before  the  time  when  motion  began,  we  may  imagine  that 
an  infinite  mind,  an  infinite  essence,  or  an  infinite  thought  (for  here  all 
these  are  one)  filled  the  ubiverse  of  space.  This,  then,  as  the  sole-existeut 
One,  must  be  the  only  absolute  reality;  all  else  can  be  but  a  developing 
of  this  one  original  and  eternal  being.'  The  manner  in  which  all  things 
proceed  from  this  absolute  unity,  *  this  universal  soul,'  or  '  mother  of  the 
universe,'  differs  only  in  form  of  statement  from  that  taught  by  the 
Vedas.  After  this  life,  the  good  are  reabsorbed  in  *  the  universal  soul,' 
the  bad,  never.  Of  the  first  doctrine,  the  destiny  of  the  good,  Lao-Tseu 
says,  *  I  teach  in  this  only  what  I  have  been  taught  by  others.'  Of  '  the 
destiny  of  violent  and  evil  men'  (that  they  will  not  be  united  to  the 
universal  soul),  *  on  this  point,*  he  says,  *  it  is  I  myself  who  am  the  father 
of  the  doctrine.'  Ifothing  further  is  required  in  elucidation  of  this 
system. 

SECTION  X. 

THE  PERSIAN  SYSTEM. 

Thb  Boundehescb,  which  means  that  which  has  been  created  from  the 
beginning — that  is,  an  account  of  the  creation,  contains  the  doctrine  of 
Cosmogony  as  taught  among  the  Persians  and  Chaldeans,  the  former 


THE  PERSIAN  SYSTEM.  \z\ 

especially.     The  work  has,  by  many,  been  attributed  to  Zoroaster,  and 
be  may  safely  be  assumed  to  have  been  its  author. 

Zoroaster  as  a  Tbaohbr  op  Morals  and  Philosophy. 

Zoroaster,  in  common  with  Confucius,  was  a  teacher  of  morals,  and 
like  Lao-Tseu,  he  was  also  an  originator  of  a  system  of  philosophy.  In 
both  relations  he  differed  very  essentially  from  all  oriental  moralists  and 
philosophers.  Gautama  and  Confucius  ignored  God  and  religion  in  their 
moral  teachings.  Zoroaster  laid  the  idea  of  God  and  religion  at  the 
basis  of  all  his  moral  teachings.  In  other  oriental  systems,  God,  if  pre- 
sented at  all,  is  disrobed  of  all  moral  attributes.  Moral  perfection  is  the 
leading  idea  of  God  as  He  is  presented  in  the  system  of  Zoroaster. 
Hence  piety,  gratitude,  praise,  worship,  and  heart-service,  have  place  in 
this  system  only.  Thus  he  writes  :  *  I  worship  and  adore  the  Creator  of 
all  things — full  of  light.*  'I  desire  by  my  prayer  with  uplifted  hands 
this  joy — the  pure  works  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  Marsda  ...  a  disposition 
to  perform  good  actions  .  .  .  and  pure  gifts  for  both  worlds,  the  bodily 
and  spiritual.'  '  I  have  entrusted  my  soul  to  Heaven  .  .  .  and  I  will 
teach  what  ig  pure  so  long  as  I  can.'  *  We  honour  the  good  spirit,  the 
good  kingdom,  the  good  law — all  that  is  good.' 

Prominent  among  his  moral  and  religious  teachings  was  the  doctrine 
of  repentance  for  sin.  *  I  repent  of  all  sin.  All  wicked  thoughts  and 
works  which  I  have  meditated  in  the  world,  corporeal,  spiritual,  earthly, 
and  heavenly,  I  repent  of  in  your  presence,  ye  believers.  0  Lord, 
pardon  through  the  three  words.' 

In  the  system  of  the  Boundehesch,  also,  we  have  the  first  appearance 
among  Oriental  teachings  of  the  idea  of  moral  good  and  moral  evil  in 
conflict  in  this  Avorld,  and  of  human  destiny  as  conditioned  fundamentally 
upon  moral  character  and  conduct.  We  have,  also,  the  doctrine  of  the 
immortality  of  the  soul,  the  fall  of  our  first  parents,  and  the  consequent 
ruin  of  the  race  by  sin,  the  possibility  of  recovery  by  repentance  and 
trust  in  God's  mercy,  a  state  of  future,  though  not  eternal,  retribution, 
the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  and  the  final  purification  of  the  universe 
from  natural  and  moral  evil  by  fire.  Zoroaster,  in  common  with  such 
teachers  as  Socrates  and  Plato,  taught  the  doctrine  of  the  Coming  One 
by  whom  the  world  shall  be  morally  renovated.  Among  the  successors 
of  Zoroaster  were  *  the  wise  men '  (Magi)  *  from  the  east,'  who  worshipped 
the  infant  Jesus  at  Bethlehem. 

The  Cosmoloot  op  the  '  Boitndehesoh.* 
The  idea  of  God  as  the  principle  of  all  things,  or  as  the  unconditioned 
cause  of  all  conditional  existences  and  facts,  is  represented  in  the  Hindu 
system  by  the  term  Brahm,  and  in  that  of  China  by  that  of  Reason.     La 


122  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  *  Boumlehesch'  the  term  Time  illimitable,  or  Terava-Akeraua,  is  em- 
ployed to  represent  the  same  idea.  In  this  system  this  Eternal  or 
Absolute  being  is  represented  as  the  creator  of  all  things  in  the  sense 
that  in  the  beginning  he  gave  being  to  Ormuzd  and  Ahriman,  the 
former  supremely  pure  and  good,  and  called  the  Light  and  the  Creative 
"Word,  and  the  latter  the  Evil  Being  and  the  principle  of  darkness. 
Ormuzd  organized  the  invisible  and  visible  universe,  filled  the  heavens 
with  pure  genii,  and  the  earth  with  clean  animals  and  wholesome  plants, 
and  then  gave  being  to  man,  who,  like  all  the  creations  of '  the  word,'  was 
originally  pure  and  holy.  Ahriman,  whose  supreme  aim  is  to  defeat  the 
wise  and  benevolent  purposes  of  Ormuzd,  filled  the  heavens  with  evil 
genii,  and  the  earth  with  unclean  and  venomous  animals  and  noxious 
plants,  and  finally  seduced  man  to  eviL  Hence  in  the  world  above  and 
the  world  below  good  and  evil  are  in  perpetual  conflict,  light  being 
opposed  by  darkness,  natural  good  by  natural  evil,  and  moral  good  by 
moral  evil.  In  this  world  man  is  the  supreme  centre  on  which  this 
conflict  turns,  Ahriman,  with  all  his  wicked  genii,  struggling  to  perpe- 
tuate human  subjection  to  natural  and  moral  evil,  and  Ormuzd,  with  all 
good  genii,  struggling  to  redeem  man  back  to  the  possession  of  natural 
and  moral  good. 

Under  the  two-fold  influence  to  which  men  are  thus  subjected,  as  free 
moral  agents,  they  make  their  election  between  the  evil  and  the  good. 
Those  who  hearken  to  Ormuzd,  and  choose  the  good,  will,  at  death,  be 
united  with  him  and  the  good  genii  in  the  world  of  light  and  blessed- 
ness. Those  who  follow  Ahriman,  and  do  evil,  will  dwell  in  misery 
with  him  and  the  evil  genii,  the  Dews,  in  the  abyss  of  darkness. 

At  the  final  consummation,  when  the  Infinite  and  Eternal  One  shall 
purify  the  universe  by  fire,  Ahriman  himself  and  evil  genii  and  wicked 
men  will  be  subdued  and  purified,  and  the  conflict  of  creation  shall  cease 
for  ever.  The  doctrine  of  final  optimism  favours  the  idea  of  those  who 
believe  that  the  real  doctrine  of  Zoroaster  was  that  Ahriman  and  all  evil 
beings  were  originally  like  man,  pure  and  holy,  and  fell  from  the  state 
in  which  they  commenced  moral  agency.  This  doctrine,  however,  was 
lost  among  the  followers  of  Zoroaster. 

It  is  to  this  duality  of  creative  good  and  evil  that  the  Scriptures  refer, 
Isa.  xlv.  5 — 7,  *  I  am  the  Lord,  and  there  is  none  else ;  there  is  no  God 
besides  me  :  I  girded  thee,  though  thou  hast  not  known  me  :  that  they 
may  know  from  the  rising  of  the  sun,  and  from  the  west,  that  there  is 
none  besides  me.  I  am  the  Lord,  and  there  is  none  else.  I  form  the 
light,  and  create  darkness :  I  make  peace,  and  create  evil :  I,  the  Lord, 
do  all  these  things.*  God  here  denies  creative  power  and  agency  of  all 
beings  but  Himself,  claims  to  be  sole  Creator  of  the  universe  and  of  all 
beings  and  objects  in  it,  and  the  sole  Governor  and  Lord  of  all,  creating 


THE  PERSIAN  SYSTEM.  123 

light  and  darkness,  and  dispensing  good  and  evil  to  creatures  according  to 
His  wilL  Moral  good  and  evil  of  creatures,  that  is,  their  voluntary  act« 
of  obedience  and  disobedience,  were  not  represented  even  in  Persian 
Mythology  as  objects  of  creative  power. 

As  our  object  is  to  represent  merely  the  essential  features  and  elements 
of  systems  of  Philosophy,  we  have  not  given  in  detail  the  Persian 
Mythology ;  nor  have  we  named  all  the  sacred  books  of  that  people, 
books  from  some  of  which  we  have  made  quotations.  We  shall  have 
occasion  to  refer  again  very  particularly  to  the  teachings  of  the  '  Bounde- 
hesch,'  *  Vendavesta,'  and  other  sacred  books  of  this  people,  when  we 
come  to  consider  the  original  religion  of  the  race^  as  indicated  by  facts, 
and  tiie  Scriptures  of  Oriental  natiooB. 


SECTION  XL 

THE  EGYPTIAN  SYSTEM. 

The  Egyptians  had  no  sacred  books  or  works  on  Philosophy  which  have 
come  down  to  us.  Their  religion,  also,  had  two  distinct  and  opposite 
phases,  exoteric  and  esoteric,  that  is,  an  exterior  theology  for  the  people, 
and  an  interior  one  for  the  priests  and  wise  men.  The  former  presents 
the  popular  Mythology,  in  which  not  merely  gods  without  number  who 
were  superior  to  men,  but  four-footed  beasts,  fowls  of  the  air,  and  creep- 
ing things,  are  presented  as  objects  of  worship.  Animals  with  the  Hindu 
are  sacred,  but  not  objects  of  worship.  With  the  Egyptian  animals, 
clean  and  unclean,  were  not  only  sacred,  but  objects  of  formal  worship. 
Spirit  is  the  object  of  Hindu  worship ;  body  and  form  that  of  Egypt. 
The  Mythology  of  this  people,  however,  is  not  the  subject  of  our  in- 
quiries and  elucidations. 

It  is  to  the  esoteric  teachings  of  the  priests  that  we  are  to  look  for  the 
Egyptian  Cosmology,  teachings  which  were  carefully  concealed  from  the 
people,  and  communicated  only  to  the  initiated.  These  esoteric  teachers 
left  us,  as  we  have  said,  no  treatises  on  any  of  the  sciences ;  nor  did  the 
record  of  their  sacred  doctrines  appear  upon  monuments,  or  on  the 
swathing  folds  of  mummies.  We  have  no  records  of  these  sacred  teach- 
ings but  such  as  became  known  to  learned  men  of  Greece  and  other 
nations.  Such  authors  as  Diodorus  Siculus,  Herodotus,  and  the  Alexan- 
drian philosophers,  lamblicus  and  Porphyry,  furnish  us  all  the  informa- 
tion we  have  upon  the  subject.  The  following  is  the  substance  of  what 
learned  men  have  derived  from  these  and  kindred  sources  : 

1.  As  existing  from  eternity  and  before  all  created  objects,  in  the  place 
of  Erahm,  Beason,  the  Eternal,  or  Time  withoat  boonds;  the  Egyptian 


124  ^  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Cosmology  places  God  without  a  name  as  *  the  primitive  obscurity,  the 
incomprehensible  being,  the  hidden  principle  of  everythiug  that  exists, 
the  invisible  source  of  all  light  and  all  life,  who  is  above  all  intelligence.' 
The  reader  will  perceive  at  once  that  the  common  Oriental  idfea  of  God 
is  here  given  by  exposition,  though  not  designated  by  any  term.  The 
Egyptians  sometimes  employed  the  term  *  Piromis '  to  represent  their  idea 
of  the  supreme  divinity,  a  term  which  means  man  supereminently,  to 
signify,  as  some  suppose,  that  Piromis  is  supreme  among  the  gods,  as 
man  is  supreme  among  the  animal  creation. 

2.  At  a  definite,  but  to  us  unknown,  period  in  the  eternity  past,  the 
supreme  divinity  became  a  producer  or  generator.  Whether  by.  emana- 
tion or  by  a  creative  word  is  not  very  clearly  stated.  All  representations 
of  subsequent  originations,  however,  indicate  that  primal  creation  was  in 
the  form  first  designated.  According  to  Herodotus,  the  first  creations,  or 
emanations,  were  three  orders  of  finite  divinities,  eight  of  the  first,  twelve 
of  the  second,  and  seven  of  the  third,  order.  Bunson  believes  that  he 
has  succeeded  in  discovering  and  designating  all  these  in  their  proper 
order  from  the  monuments.  From  these  divinities  the  visible  universe 
was  originated,  or  rather  emanated,  the  purer  and  higher  elements  from 
the  higher,  and  the  grosser  from  the  lower  orders.  Of  the  first  order,  for 
example,  Kneph  is  'the  efficient  reason  of  things,  the  creator,  the 
demiurgus,'  and  Phta  is  *  the  organizer  of  the  world,  the  God  of  Fire,  the 
vital  principle.' 

3.  All  emanations  in  common — and  here  we  have  a  striking  peculiarity 
of  the  Egyptian  Cosmology — all  emanations,  we  say,  proceed  in  a  kind  of 
syzygy ;  that  is,  each  emanation  is  attended  with  another  which  possesses 
inferior,  and  sometimes  opposite,  elements  and  characteristics.  Hence  the 
intermingling,  everywhere  in  nature,  of  order  and  disorder,  beauty  and 
deformity,  good  and  evil,  life  and  death. 

4.  The  evil  principle  is  represented  by  the  term  *  Typhon,'  and  the 
good,  perfection,  or  absolute  beauty,  by  the  word  *  Niphthys.'  From  the 
marriage  of  these,  visible  forms  proceed,  and  hence  good  and  evil  consti- 
tute the  very  essence  of  the  world. 

6.  Souls  are  immortal,  but  subject  to  cycles  of  transmigration,  each 
cycle  occupying  a  space  of  three  thousand  years.  During  this  period  the 
soul  dwells  successively  in  the  bodies  of  every  variety  of  beasts  and  insects, 
and  then  reinhabits  a  human  body.  Thus  human  existence  continues 
for  ever.  Here  we  have  the  doctrine  of  transmigration  in  an  essentially 
different  form  from  that  affirmed  in  other  Oriental  nations.  The  soul, 
according  to  the  Egyptian  idea,  does  not  leave  the  body  until  the  latter 
has  decayed ;  hence  they  embalmed  the  body,  and  thus  shortened  the 
cycle  of  transmigration  for  at  least  one  thousand  years. 

The  doctrine  of  transmigration,  as  taught  in  Egypt,  differs  in  two 


THE  E  G  YPTTAN  S  YSTEM.  125 

fundamental  respects  from  that  taught  in  all  other  Oriental  countries. 
With  the  latter,  it  was  in  all  cases  to  be  but  of  temporary  continuance ; 
with  the  former,  it  was  to  be  in  all  cases  eternal.  "With  the  latter,  it 
might  by  science  be  wholly  superseded  by  immediate  absorption  in  God 
at  death,  and  in  all  cases  might  be  shortened  and  modified  by  religious 
observances ;  with  the  latter,  the  state  of  the  soul  during  the  period  of 
transmigration  could  not  be  affected  either  by  moral  character  or  religious 
services ;  all  that  could  be  done  was,  to  retain  the  soul  for  long  periods 
in  the  body  by  embalming  the  latter.  Evil,  as  presented  in  all  these 
systems  in  common,  the  Persian  excepted,  is  natural  rather  than  moral, 
and  necessary  instead  of  voluntary.  Moral  responsibility,  in  its  true  and 
proper  sense,  is  either  ignored  or  denied  in  all  these  systema 


SECTIOIT  XIL 

GENERAL  KEMARKS  UPON  THE  ORIENTAL  SYSTEMS. 

We  have  now  completed  our  expositions  of  the  various  forms  of  the 
Oriental  Philosophy.  It  remains  to  resurvey  the  ground  we  have  gone 
over,  and  to  gather  up  such  reflections  and  general  observations  as  may 
have  an  important  bearing  upon  our  subsequent  inquiries.  Among  these 
observations  and  reflections,  the  following  demand  special  attention : 

L  Thk  Connection  of  these  Systems  with  Eeligiow, 
In  the  common  histories  of  Philosophy  these  systems  have  been  repre- 
sented as  being  wholly  religious  in  their  character,  and,  consequently,  as 
not  belonging  properly  to  a  history  of  this  science.  *  Where  and  when 
does  Philosophy  begin  V  asks  Sch  wegler.  '  Manifestly,'  he  answers,  *  when 
a  final  philosophical  principle,  a  final  ground  of  being,  is  soeght  in  a 
philosophical  way ;  and  hence,  with  the  Grecian  Philosophy,  the  Oriental — 
Chinese  and  Hindu  (so-named  philosophies,  but  which  are  rather  theo- 
logies or  mythologies) — and  the  mystic  cosmologies  of  Greece  in  its  earliest 
periods,  are  therefore  excluded  from  our  more  definite  problem.  Like 
Aristotle,  we  begin  the  history  of  Philosophy  with  Thales.  for  similar 
reasons  we  exclude  also  the  Philosophy  of  the  Christian  Middle  Ages,  or 
Scholasticism.  This  is  not  so  much  a  philosophy  as  a  philosophizing  or 
reflecting  within  the  already  prescribed  limits  of  positive  religion.  It  is, 
therefore,  essentially  theology,  and  belongs  to  the  science  of  the  history 
of  Christian  doctrines.' 

Here  we  have  a  fundamental  mistake  in  regard  to  the  proper  sphere 
of  the  history  of  Philosophy  itself,  and  also  in  respect  to  the  relations  of 
the  systems  referred  to  and  religion.     *  Philosophy,'  says  this  author,  and 


126  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  FIIILOSOPHY. 

rightly  too,  'examines  every  individual  thing  in  reference  to  a  final  prin- 
ciple, and  considers  it  as  one  link  in  the  whole  chain  of  knowledge' — 
'  foUows  it  out  to  its  ultimate  grounds.'  Every  people,  who  have  attained  to 
any  degree  of  civilization,  have  their  ideas  in  regard  to  *  the  final  principle' 
and  '  ultimate  grounds'  referred  to,  and  in  regard  to  the  relations  of  indi- 
vidual things  and  particular  facts  to  such  principles  and  grounds.  Here 
•we  have  the  Philosophy  of  such  peoples.  The  religious  ideas  of  all 
peoples  also,  in  particulars  perfectly  fundamental,  take  form  from  their 
philosophy.  All  systems  of  Philosophy  are  religious  or  non-religious  in 
their  ultimate  deductions.  One  of  the  fundamental  aims  of  every  true 
history  of  Philosophy  is  to  show  what  are  'the  final  principles'  and 
*  ultimate  grounds '  to  which  each  people  refer  all  individual  things  and 
facts,  and  how  they  explain  the  latter  by  the  former,  and,  finally,  how  far 
their  religious  ideas  were  moulded  and  determined  by  their  philosophy. 
Oriental  and  mediaeval  systems,  therefore,  have  place  within  the  sphere 
of  the  history  of  Philosophy,  for  the  same  reasons  that  those  of  Greece 
have. 

In  all  Oriental  systems,  also,  we  have  religion,  in  all  its  forms  and 
applications,  determined,  in  fact,  by  Philosophy.  In  all  such  countries 
religion  is  esoteric  and  exoteric :  the  former  for  the  initiated  (the  Yogees), 
and  the  latter  for  the  people.  Religion,  in  its  exterior  or  popular  form, 
is  wholly  the  creation  of  esoteric  thought,  and,  as  thus  developed  and 
perfected,  was  adopted  and  imposed  upon  the  people  by  the  sovereign 
authorities.  The  three  orders  of  gods  of  Egypt,  Brahm,  Vishnu,  Siva, 
and  other  gods  of  India,  Yang  and  Yn  of  China,  and  Ormuzd  and  Ahriman 
of  Persia,  are  creations  of  the  Philosophy  of  those  nations.  Their  religion 
being  determined  by  their  philosophy,  we  cannot  understand  the  latter 
without  reference  to  the  former. 

Compte,  for  example,  gives  us  first  the  Positive  Philosophy,  and  then  a 
fully  developed  system  of  religion,  the  latter  being  determined  through 
and  by  the  former.  Suppose  that,  when  the  two  systems  were  completed, 
the  Philosophy  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  religion  on  the  other,  the 
Government,  having  the  power  to  do  it,  had  adopted  both  as  the  science 
and  religion  of  the  people,  and  had  perforce  imposed  the  latter  upon  the 
nation.  We  should  have  here  a  case  perfectly  parallel  to  what  did  obtiain 
in  all  the  Oriental  nations.  Would  not  the  Philosophy  of  France,  in  that 
case,  come  as  fully  within  the  sphere  of  a  history  of  Philosophy  as  that  of 
Compte  now  doesi  For  such  reasons  we  have  gone  back,  in  our  in- 
quiries, to  these  Oriental  systems. 


GENERAL  REMARKS  UPON  THE  ORIENTAL  SYSTEMS.      127 


Eelations  op  Oriental  Eeligions  to   the   Peimitivb  Religion  op 

THE  Eace. 
A  question  of  great  importance  here  presents  itself,  namely,  what  are 
the  relations  of  these  Oriental  religions  to  the  primitioe  religion  of  man- 
kind ?  All  these  religions,  as  we  have  seen,  and  as  none  will  deny,  are, 
in  fact  and  form,  creations  of  preformed  and  perfected  systems  of 
Philosophy,  and  consequently  cannot  be  regarded  as  being  themselves 
primitive  religions.  Philosophy  is  one  of  the  latest,  and  indeed  the  latest 
of  all,  forms  of  human  thought.  A  religion  which  arises  after,  and  takes 
form  from,  Philosophy,  must  stand  at  a  very  wide  remove  from  the 
primitive  faith.  If  we  would  inquire,  with  any  rational  hope  of  success, 
for  the  characteristics  and  elements  of  this  primordial  religion,  we  must 
find  them  in  those  elements  which  are  common  to  all  religions  which  have 
assumed  definite  and  ultimate  forms.  All  derivative  religions  will  contain, 
in  their  positive  or  negative  forms,  all  the  essential  elements  of  the 
common  religion  from  which  they  were  derived.  The  validity  of  these 
statements,  we  are  quite  sure,  no  thoughtful  minds  of  common  integrity 
will  deny.  What,,  then,  are  the  elements  common  to  all  these  religions  1 
They  are,  among  others,  the  following : — 

Monotheism,  the  Original  Faith  of  the  Race, 
1.  The  doctrine  of  one,  and  only  one,  eternally  existing  and  supreme  God 
— God  in  this  form,  and  in  no  other,  is  acknowledged,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
in  all  these  religions  without  exception.  In  all  antitheistic  systems,  also, 
the  doctrine  of  one  God,  in  this  one  exclusive  form,  is  either  ignored  or 
defied.  Between  man  and  this  supreme  God,  '  there  are  gods  many  and 
lords  many.'  All  these  intermediate  divinities,  however,  are,  without 
exception,  regarded  and  worshipped,  not  as  uncreated  beings,  but  as  being 
in  common  with  man,  and  in  the  same  sense  that  he  is,  creatures  of  God. 
In  no  nation  under  heaven  did  Polytheism  ever  obtain  but  in  this  one 
exclusive  form.  Nor  were  *  four-footed  beasts,  fowls  of  the  air,  or  creeping 
things,'  ever  worshipped  but  as  created  objects — creatures  of  this  one  God. 
The  lowest  Feticists  never  worshipped  stones  and  herbs,  and  beasts,  and 
birds,  and  insects,  as  eternally  existing,  and  uncreated  verities,  but  as 
being,  like  themselves,  creatures  of  God.  Did  Egypt  worship  the  ox,  or 
crocodile,  as  eternally  existing  and  uncreated  beings  1  We  all  know  tuey 
did  not.  Nor  have  we  the  remotest  evidence,  but  positive  evidence  to 
the  contrary,  that  any  people  ever  worshipped  any  such  objects  \xnder  the 
impression  that  they  were  uncreated  beings.  No  people  ever  held  the 
doctrine  of  more  than  one  original,  eternal,  and  uncreated  divinity. 
What,  then,  must  have  been  the  original  religious  faith  of  the  race  1  No 
people,  as  we  have  formerly  shown,  do  exist,  or  ever  have  existed,  with- 


128  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

out  religious  ideas  of  some  kind.  The  idea  of  creation  and  of  a  Creator 
is  as  old  and  as  universal  as  human  nature  itself.  Theistic  ideas  of  some 
kind,  mankind,  from  the  immutable  laws  of  our  intellectual  nature,  must 
have.  In  all  religions  one  idea  is  omnipresent,  that  of  creation  in  some 
form,  and  also  that  of  God  as  the  Author  of  nature,  either  by  emanation, 
or  creation  proper.  What,  then,  we  ask  again,  is  the  original  divine 
idea?  It  was  not,  we  answer,  either  Feticism  or  Polytheism.  Gods  in 
these  forms  are  worshipped,  not  as  uncreated  but  created  beings,  not  as 
eternal  existences,  but  as  creatures  of  time,  like  man  himself.  Not  a 
solitary  exception  to  these  statements  can  be  found  in  the  history  of  the 
raca  Nor  was  this  idea  that  of  God  as  Creator  by  emanation.  This 
idea  of  God  is  a  dream  of  Philosophy.  The  human  intelligence,  in  its 
natural,  spontaneous,  intuitive  procedures,  never  identities  God  with 
nature,  or  nature  with  God,  but  always  cognizes  Him,  worships  Him,  and 
prays  to  Him,  not  only  as  the  Author  and  Governor  of  nature,  but  as 
being  separate  from,  over,  and  above  '  the  things  that  are  made.' 
Philosophic  thought  must  have  long  pondered  the  problem  of  universal 
being  and  its  laws,  and  must  have  wandered  to  an  infinite  distance  from 
its  point  of  departure,  before  the  idea  could  have  approached  the  human 
mind  that  Brahm,  reason,  time  illimitable,  Eeason,  or  the  Infinite  and 
Absolute,  '  alone  exists ;  everything  else  is  illusion.'  The  divine  idea,  in 
its  original  form,  can  have  been  nothing  else  but  this — that  of  one 
personal  God,  who,  as  a  free  self-conscious  personality,  is  the  Author  of 
nature  by  creation  proper. 

What  holds  true  of  the  Oriental  religions  holds  equally,  as  we  shall 
see  hereafter,  of  those  of  Greece,  Eome,  and  all  other  heathen  nations. 
The  Greeks  had  their  Zeus,  and  the  Romans  their  Deus,  whom  they 
regarded  as  the  sole  supreme  God.  Between  this  eternal  being  and  man 
stood  thousands  of  superior  beings  called  gods ;  not  one  of  these,  how- 
ever, was  regarded  by  their  most  devoted  worshippers  as  an  eternal  and 
uncreated  existence,  but  as,  in  common  with  man,  a  created  being,  and 
as  such  a  creature  of  time.  Heathen  Mythology  records  the  birth  and 
parentage  of  these  inferior  and  finite  deities — deities  represented  by  their 
worshippers  as  not  only  finite,  but  imperfect,  and  even  sinful  creatures 
like  men. 

Feticism,  also,  wherever  it  exists,  has  being,  like  that  of  Egypt,  as  a 
socially  organized  religion — religion  with  a  formal  priesthood.  In  the 
original  religions  there  are  no  priests  as  a  separate  class.  The  father  of 
each  family  was  the  only  priest,  as  well  as  ruler,  known  in  the  primitive 
state  of  mankind.  As  we  descend  historically,  or  by  observation,  towards 
this  primitive  state,  the  number  of  nominal  gods  diminishes  until  wo 
come  to  '  the  poor  Indian,'  whose  only  object  of  worship  is  *  the  Great 
Spirit.'    The  rudest  African  known  is  not  a  Feticist.     Nor  is  he,  as 


GENERAL  REMARKS  UPON  THE  ORIENTAL  SYSTEMS.       129 

mature  investigations  have  demonstrated,  void  of  religious  ideas.  On  the 
other  hand,  he  worships  and  prays  to  the  great  spirit — the  supreme 
divinity  whuin  he  designates  by  a  peculiar  name. 

A  profound  study  of  the  immutable  laws  of  mind  renders  it  demonstrably 
evident  that  mankind  cannot  exist  in  any  state  without  religious  ideas 
and  sentiments.  Ou  the  perception  of  body,  succession,  and  events,  for 
example,  reason  necessarily  apprehends  space,  time,  and  cause  as  the 
necessary  condition  of  the  existence  and  occurrence  of  substances  and 
events.  In  the  presence  of  facts  of  external  and  internal  perception,  the 
mind  apprehends  two  orders  of  existence,  namely,  those  represented  by 
the  terms  matter  and  spirit.  Thus  four  realities  are,  and  must  be,  repre- 
sented in  hniuau  thought — to  wit,  space,  time,  spirit,  and  matter,  the 
two  former  being  given  as  absolutely  infinite,  and  necessarily  existing, 
realities.  While  all  substances  and  events  are  necessarily  cognized  as 
existing  and  occurring  in  space  and  time,  the  mind  cannot  but  apprehend 
itself,  and  all  visilde  objects  around  it,  as  finite  and  dependent  forms  of 
being,  and  as  a  consequence,  must  apprehend  an  unconditioned  and 
eternally  existing  power  on  which  finite  and  dependent  forms  of  being 
depend.  From  tiie  necessary  principles  and  laws  of  our  intellectual  and 
moral  nature,  such  a  power  must  suggest  itself  and  become  omnipresent 
in  thought.  Of  the  reality  of  such  a  power,  the  mind,  in  its  original 
and  intuitive  procedures,  can  no  more  doubt  than  it  can  the  fact  of  its 
own  conscious  being  and  that  of  realities  around  it.  As  in  universal 
thought,  the  conditioned  necessarily  implies  the  unconditioned,  and  the 
tinite  as  necessarily  suggests  the  infinite,  and  the  imperfect  the  perfect, 
and  the  dependent  the  independent,  and  all  sustaining  power,  the  mind 
would  naturally,  if  not  necessarily,  apprehend  the  unconditioned  cause  as 
infinite  and  perfect,  and  would  no  more,  in  its  original  and  intuitive 
thoughts  and  convictions,  doubt  the  reality  of  that  cause  than  it  would 
the  validity  of  the  principle  that  every  event  must  have  a  cause.  Nor  is 
there  any  law  of  thought  by  which  this  power  would  present  itself  to  the 
mind  as  being,  not  one,  but  many.  The  Unconditioned  we  never  think 
of  as  a  multiple,  but  as  a  unity. 

While  the  mind,  also,  intuitively  distinguishes  itself,  as  spirit,  from  all 
material  existences  around  it,  it  can  never,  in  its  primary  and  intuitive 
procedures,  apprehend  this  eternal  verity,  this  unconditioned  and  universal 
cause  of  all  conditioneci  forms  of  being,  as  an  inhering  law  or  property  of 
matter,  but  as,  like  itself,  a  free,  self-conscious  spirit,  and  as  such,  unlike 
the  finite  self,  an  infinite  and  perfect  mind.  Unless  mind  itself  is  a  lie. 
Monotheism  must  have  been  the  primitive  religion  of  the  race.  It  is  a 
shallow  and  unrefie.ctive  and  unobserving  philosophy  that  represents  the 
primitive  race  of  mankind,  a  realm  of  rational  per8oualitie.s,  as  void  of 
religious  ideas  and  sentiments,  and  theu  as  ascending  from  Feticism, 

9 


I30  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

through  Polytheism,  to  Monotheism,  There  is  not  a  known  fact  in  the 
history  of  the  race  to  justify  such  a  deduction.  Polytheism  and  Peticism, 
on  the  other  hand,  are  degenerate  forms  of  original  Monotheism,  the  pure 
religion  corrupted  and  '  spoiled  by  Philosophy,'  or  by  '  science  falsely  so- 
called.'  The  cannibals  of  New  Zealand,  and  of  the  islands  of  the  South 
Pacific,  are  many  of  them,  to  say  the  least,  Feticists,  and  they  are  in  the 
lowest  state  in  which  humanity  has  ever  been  found.  The  question  is, 
are  they  degenerates  from  a  former  higher  state  of  civilization,  or  are  they 
at  this  point  in  the  scale  of  ascent  from  a  still  lower  stage  ?  Many  points 
of  physical  resemblance,  as  well  as  traditions  and  customs  which  obtain 
among  them,  absolutely  evince  the  fact  that  they  are  degenerate  de- 
scendants of  a  comparatively  civilized  people  who  formerly  emigrated 
thither  from  Ceylon  and  Southern  India.  In  India,  for  example,  they 
have  an  annual  festival  in  commemoration  of  the  escape  of  Noah  and  his 
family  in  the  Ark.  The  same  custom  obtains  among  these  cannibals. 
They  have  not  only  a  specific  tradition  of  the  Flood,  but  build  vessels  in 
imagined  conformity  to  the  ark  in  which  Noah  and  his  family  escaped. 
The  animals  and  reptiles  which  the  people  of  India  regard  as  sacred, 
these  degenerate  savages,  in  conformity  with  Egyptian  custom,  worship, 
not  as  supreme  divinities,  but  as  containing  the  spirits  of  hnite  but  higher 
genii.  No  Egyptian  or  cannibal,  we  repeat,  ever  worshipped  an  animal 
under  the  imprcvssion  that  man  is  a  creature  of  whom  the  animal  is  the 
creator — that  man  is  *  a  creature  of  yesterday,  and  the  animal  an  eternal 
and  uncreated  being.  The  objects  of  fetich  and  idolatrous  worship  are 
all,  without  exception,  worshipped  as  creatures  standing  between  man  and 
his  creator.  All  known  facts  of  observation  and  history  render  demon- 
strably evident  the  teachings  of  the  class  of  learned  men  recently  risen 
in  India,  the  class  to  whom  we  have  formerly  referred — that  the  original 
religion  of  India  and  the  race  was  Monotheism  ;  that  all  idolatrous  re- 
ligions are  corruptions  of  the  primitive  faith  of  the  race ;  that  Monotheism 
is  the  doctrine  originally  taught  in  the  Vedas  ;  that  these  sacred  books,  in 
their  present  form,  are  corruptions  of  the  original  text,  corruptions  intro- 
duced by  the  priesthood — a  fact  evinced  by  many  passages  found  in  these 
writings  in  their  present  form, 

2.  Relations  of  these  Systems  to  the  Doctrine  of  the  Soul  as  Distinct  from 
all  Material  Existences,  and  as  Immortal. 

In  all  the  Oriental  systems  we  also  find,  either  in  its  positive  or  nega- 
tive form,  the  clearest  recognition  of  the  human  soul  as  a  form  of  being 
distinct  and  separate  from  all  material  existences.  In  every  such  system 
the  idea  of  matter  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the  soul  on  the  other,  is  re- 
ferred to  in  the  identical  form  in  which  the  idea  of  each  is  represented  in 
Uluversal  thought.     Oriental  Materialism  denies,  indeed,  the  reality  of 


GEl^ERAL  REMARKS  UPON  THE  ORIENTAL  SYSTEMS.        131 

spirit,  and  Idealism  that  of  matter.  In  both  alike,  however,  the  two  ideas, 
in  the  universal  forms  designated,  are  distinctly  represented.  In  the  same 
positive  or  negative  form,  the  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul  is 
distinctly  and  definitely  represented  in  all  these  systems.  Now,  ideas 
must  have  existed  in  the  human  mind  prior  to  their  distinct,  affuiuative, 
or  negative  embodiment  in  systems  of  Philosophy.  What,  then,  must 
have  been  the  pre-existing  and  original  faith  of  the  race  on  all  these  sub- 
jects ?  It  must  have  embodied,  with  greater  or  less  distinctness,  not  only 
the  doctrine  of  creation  *  by  the  word  of  God,'  but  of  the  universe  as  con- 
stituted of  two  distinct  and  separate  orders  of  being,  matter  and  spirit, 
and,  finally,  that  of  the  immortality  of  the  human  souL  On  no  other 
hypothesis  can  the  facts  before  us  be  accounted  for. 

3.  The  Belations  of  these  Systems  to  the  Doctrine  of  Right  and  Wrong,  of 
3foral  Obligation,  Moral  Desert,  and  Retribution. 

One  of  the  most  noticeable  features  of  all  these  systems  is  the  distinct- 
ness and  dejiniteness  with  which  all  the  doctrines  just  named  are  recognized, 
generally  in  their  negative  forms,  in  them.  Every  one  of  these  systems 
refers  to  the  law  of  duty,  to  human  obligation,  to  the  desert  of  obedience 
and  disobedience,  to  God's  relations  to  moral  action,  and  to  the  bearing  of 
present  character  and  conduct  upon  immortal  destiny.  "With  few  excep- 
tions, they  in  fact  and  form  deny  all  moral  distinctions,  all  moral  desert 
in  human  character  and  conduct,  all  forms  of  future  retribution,  and  re- 
present God  as  wholly  indifferent  to  human  conduct  as  right  and  wrong. 
These  very  denials,  however,  imply  absolutely  the  omnipresence  in  human 
thought  of  the  doctrines  denied.  Even  *  science,  falsely  so-called,'  does 
not  deny  what  nobody  believes,  and  more  especially  that  not  previously 
represented  in  thought.  What,  then,  must  have  been  the  pre-existing 
and  primitive  faith  of  the  race  in  regard  to  all  these  doctrines  1  That 
faith,  we  answer,  must  have  embodied,  in  their  strictly  positive  forms, 
the  doctrines  of  right  and  wrong,  of  obligation,  of  moral  desert,  and  future 
retribution.  A.  fundamental  element  of  that  faith,  also,  must  have  been 
the  idea  of  God  as  the  moral  Governor  of  the  universe. 

4.  Relations  of  these  Systems  to  the  Doctrine  of  Human  Sinfulness. 

In  all  these  systems  without  exception,  man  is  represented  as  in  a 
fallen  state,  and  as  being  miserable  in  consequence  of  his  lapsed  condition. 
The  question  definitely  proposed,  and  professedly  answered,  in  every  one 
of  them,  pertains  wholly  to  the  condition  and  means  of  escape  from 
present  and  impending  evils.  In  all  the  systems  but  one,  that  of  Zoro- 
aster, man  is  affirmed  not  to  be  guilty  for  his  sinfulness,  and  consequent 
misery.  Yet  the  idea  of  the  co-existence  of  these  evils,  and  their  neces- 
sary connection,  is  omnipresent  in  all  these  systems.     Every  system,  we 

9—2 


132  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

repeat,  affirms  the  fact  of  sin,  and  of  misery  as  its  consequence,  even 
while  man's  responsibility  for  both  is  denied.  Such  facts  absolutely 
evince  the  omnipresent  consciousness  in  the  human  mind  of  the  fact  of 
sin,  and  of  misery  as  its  necessary  consequence,  together  with  the  im- 
mutable conviction  of  human  responsibility  for  both. 

6.  TliA  Idea  of  Salvation  from  Sin,  the  Common  Element  of  all  these 
Religious  Systems. 

One  other  element  common  to  all  these  systems  claims  our  special 
attention,  the  idea  of  salvation  from  sin  and  its  consequences.  The  evil 
and  the  remedy  are  ideas  omnipresent  in  all  these  systems.  The  forms  of 
absolute  truth,  as  apprehended  by  Gautama  Buddha,  embraced  the  follow- 
ing elements :  the  evil — the  cause  of  the  evil — the  fact  that  salvation  is 
possible,  and  the  means  of  attaining  this  end.  Yet  Gautama  utterly 
ignored,  or  denied,  the  doctrine  of  God.  The  same  holds  true  of  all 
these  systems  in  all  their  forms.  All  affirm  the  doctrine  of  man  as  a 
fallen  being,  and  of  salvation  on  conditions  with  which  man  may  comply. 
The  form  of  the  affirmed  evil,  and  of  the  remedy,  is  one  thing ;  the  fact 
of  both  is  quite  another.  This  central  fact  is  what  is  material  in  the 
present  argument,  as  it  discloses,  as  omnipresent  in  human  thought,  the 
great  truth  of  salvation  from  sin  as  revealed  to  man  immediately  after 
the  Fall — a  truth  which  enters  as  a  fundamental  element  into  all  the 
diverse  religions  of  the  race. 

What,  then,  are  the  essential  elements  of  the  primitive  religion  of 
man,  the  religion  of  which  Heathenism,  Feticism,  and  Anti-theism,  in 
all  their  forms,  are  corruptions  1  This  primordial  religion  must  have 
embraced,  among  others,  the  following  elements,  namely,  the  doctrine  of 
the  being  and  perfections  of  a  free,  self-conscious,  and  personal  God — 
that  of  creation,  not  by  emanation  or  natural  law,  but  '  by  the  word  of 
God ' — creation  constituted  of  matter  and  finite  spirit — of  the  human 
soul,  under  moral  law,  and  in  a  fallen  state,  and  miserable  on  account  of 
sin — of  salvation  on  conditions  with  which  man  may  comply — of  duty, 
responsibility,  immortality,  and  retribution.  All  these  elements  are,  in 
fact  and  form,  present,  as  specifically  affirmed  or  denied,  in  all  religions, 
and  in  all  systems  of  Philosophy  ancient  and  modern.  The  law  of  universal 
deduction,  as  announced  by  Kant,  and  which  none  will  deny,  is  most 
strictly  applicable  here,  namely,  '  Facts  strictly  common  to  a  great  variety 
of  diverse  cases  must  have  a  common  ground  for  their  existence  and  occur- 
rence.^ Here  we  have  a  class  of  doctrines,  every  one  of  which  is  specifi- 
cally affirmed,  or  denied,  in  every  religion,  and  in  every  system  of 
Philosophy,  which  has  ever  been  the  object  of  human  thought.  This 
universal  fact,  we  say,  can  be  accounted  for  but  upon  one  exclusive 
hypothesis^  namely,  that  all  these  reli<;ion8  and  systems  are  pure,  or 


GENERAL  REMARKS  UPON  THE  ORIENTAL  SYSTEMS.      133 

corrupted,  streams  from  one  common  source — a  primordial  religion  once 
co-extensive  with  the  race,  a  religion  in  which  all  these  doctrines  were 
aflSrmed,  as  forms  of  absolute  truth.  The  validity  of  this  hypothesis 
•will  receive  additional  confirmation  in  all  our  subsequent  investigations. 

VI.  The  Idea  op  Human  Existence  and  Salvation,  as  it  Appears 
IN  THE  Light  op  all  these  Systems. 

Gautama  Buddha  has  expressed  two  ideas  which,  in  their  essential 
forms,  are  strictly  common  to  all  Oriental  religions  and  systems  of  Philo- 
sophy, that  of  Zoroaster  excepted — those  of  human  existence  as  a  curse 
and  non-being,  as  the  only  possible  salvation  from  that  curse.  All 
these  systems  agree  absolutely  in  regard  to  the  doctrine  first  named,  and 
differ  only  in  form  in  regard  to  the  second.  In  all  these  systems  conscious 
existence  is  represented  as  the  curse,  and  annihilation,  or  utterly  unconscious 
being,  as  salvation.  These  are  now,  and  have  been  for  the  past  2,500 
years,  at  least,  the  two  fundamental  and  avowed  articles  of  the  religious 
and  philosophical  faith  of  three-fifths  of  the  race.  These  two  doctrines, 
in  their  essential  forms,  enter,  as  essential  elements,  into  the  systems  of 
Materialism,  Idealism,  and  Scepticism,  of  all  ages.  Materialism  presents, 
as  our  hope  of  redemption  from  admitted  existing  evils,  death  as  an  eternal 
sleep.  Idealism  gives  us  the  hope  of  redemption  through  reabsorption 
in  the  Absolute,  or  non-consciousness.  Scepticism  substitutes  for  an 
eternally  conscious  future  an  eternal  blank.  Yet  men  regard  teachers 
■who  unfold  eternal  non-being,  as  the  only  hope  of  soul-salvation,  as 
benefactors  of  their  species. 

"Wherein  lies  the  secret  of  the  power  which  the  idea  of  real  annihilation 
has  over  the  human  mind?  Wherein,  for  example,  lies  the  secret 
of  the  world-wide  and  fascinating  power  of  Byron,  the  poet-prophet  of 
modern  Buddhism  1  We  judge  that  we  have  before  us  the  true,  and  only 
true,  answer  to  such  inquiries.  The  Christian  religion,  while  it  admits, 
and  affirms,  the  universally  conscious  fact  of  human  sin,  and  misery  in 
consequence  of  sin,  takes  away  the  effect  by  removing  the  cause,  and 
opens  upon  the  mind  of  all  who,  as  Zoroaster  did,  will  repent  of  sin,  and 
accept  of  God's  remedy  from  its  death-inflicting  power,  the  bright  vision 
and  assured  hope  of  immortal  purity,  and  consequent  fellowship  with  the 
infinite  and  eternal  mind.  Ever  since  this  star  of  hope  rose  upon  the 
sin-darkened  and  terror-stricken  vision  of  humanity,  in  Eden,  all  who 
have  followed  the  guiding  light  of  that  star  have  sought,  not  non-being, 
or  eternal  unconsciousness  through  absorption  in  Brahm  or  the  Absolute, 
but  'a  country,'  'a  better  country,  that  is  an  heavenly,'  'a  city  which 
hath  foundations,'  a  city  into  which  sin  and  its  death-curse  enter  not, 
and  in  which  God  is  the  soul's  '  everlasting  light,  and  the  days  of  its 
mourning  are  ended.'    To  all  such  existence  is  an  infinite  good. 


134  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

But  what  is  the  character  of  all  these  hopeless  religions  and  godless 
Philosophies  ?  They  all  in  common  leave  the  primal  curse,  conscious  siu 
and  its  death-sting,  unremoved  and  remediless.  They  give  to  the  mind 
a  godless  universe,  or  a  god  without  emotion,  without  love,  at  a  prayer- 
less  remove  from  human  suffering  and  human  woe,  and  as  coldly  indifferent 
to  human  want,  human  destiny,  and  human  desert,  as  is  the  heart  of 
infinite  space.  Let  mind,  under  the  omnipresent  pressure  of  conscious 
sin  and  ill-desert,  from  which  it  cannot  escape,  become  oppressed  with  the 
idea  of  existence  in  such  a  dead  universe  as  these  religions  and  philoso- 
phies reveal  to  its  vision,  and  what  will  be  its  necessary  estimate  of 
enduring  the  perpetually  accumulating  weight  of  oppressive  thought,  feel- 
ing, and  action  to  eternity  %  What  will  be  its  necessary  estimate  of 
conscious  existence  itself?  Just  what  Gaulama  found  it  in  his  revelation 
of  absolute  truth,  to  wit,  '  All  existence  is  evil.'  Escape  from  conscious 
to  unconscious  being  will  be  salvation,  *  a  consummation  devoutly  to  be 
wished.'  Let  the  doctrine  of  future  non-being  take  form  before  the  mind 
as  a  doctrine  of  science,  a  revelation  of  absolute  truth,  and  to  all  who 
will  not  repent  of  sin  and  seek  redemption  from  its  curse-power,  that 
doctrine  will  have  attractions  of  infinite  strength.  Here,  undeniably,  lies 
the  secret  of  the  power  of  Buddhism,  Brahmanism,  Materialism,  Idealism, 
and  Scepticism,  in  the  present  and  past  agea. 

VIL  What  has  the  Eace  Eeason  to  Expect  from  the  Anti-Theistio 
Philosophies  which  are  Beino  Commended  to  Human  Regard'? 
Error,  like  truth,  always  approaches  the  mind  with  *a  promise  of  life,' 
and  commends  itself  to  human  regard  as  an  infallible  remedy  for  all  the 
infinite  '  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to.'  Never  did  Anti-Theistic  Philosophies 
hold  out  to  sin-burdened  humanity  such  promises  as  now,  and  these 
Philosophies  are  swarming  upon  us  in  all  the  forms  in  which  they  have 
ever  before  appeared.  Long  and  fully  tested  experience,  and  that  in 
every  conceivable  human  condition,  is  a  chart  which  may  be  safely  and 
wisely  consulted  by  '  the  men  of  this  generation  '  in  regard  to  these  old 
lights  which  are  now  held  out.  Not  a  solitary  new  system  is  before  us, 
nor  any  old  system  in  any  essentially  new  form.  In  the  affirmed  and 
uninterrupted  light  of  these  systems  three-fifths  of  the  race  have  been 
advancing  or  retrograding  for  more  than  two  thousand  years.  The  power 
of  these  systems  for  good  or  ill  has  been  fully  tested  by  the  best  thinkers 
of  both  hemispheres  during  all  this  period.  The  tendency  of  these  systems 
to  mar  human  advancement  we  can  read  in  the  rise  and  fall  of  Greece 
and  Eome,  in  the  state  of  that  *  basest  of  kingdoms,'  Egypt,  and  in  the 
dead  moral  debasement  and  stolid  mental  immobility  of  India  and  China. 
We  can  read  their  tendency  to  remedy  the  ills  of  life  in  the  undeniable 
fact  that^  during  all  these  years,  these  systems  have  rendered,  in  the  esti- 


GENERAL  REMARKS  UPON  THE  ORIENTAL  SYSTEMS.       135 

mate  of  three-fifths  of  the  race,  conscious  existence  the  curse  of  humanit}', 
and  the  eternal  escape  from  all  thought,  feeling,  and  activity,  salvation. 
Yet  we  are  assured  that  if  we  will  take  to  our  heart-embrace  these  old, 
dead,  decayed,  and  death-imparting  systems,  we  shall  have  life,  and 
humanity  will  bloom  with  a  deathless  vigour.  For  these  spectres  of 
darkness,  which  are  lifting  their  horrid  and  lifeless  forms  amid  the 
tombs  of  all  the  great  empires  of  the  old  world,  and  which  have  blighted 
the  morals  and  the  intelligence  of  three-fifths  of  the  race  for  more  than 
twenty  centuries,  for  these  soulless  forms,  we  are  called  upon  to  look  away 
from  '  the  face  of  Infinity  unveiled '  to  our  moral  vision,  to  '  deny  the 
Lord  that  bought  us,'  to  close  our  eyes  to  the  illuminations  of  the  Eternal 
Spirit,  to  surrender  our  '  everlasting  consolations  and  good  hope  through 
grace,'  to  give  over  our  divine  fellowships  and  immortal  fruitions  and 
assurances  of  an  eternity  in  the  kingdom  of  light,  and  all  for  what  1  For 
the  sublime  privilege  of  thinking  with  Messrs.  Compte,  Mill,  Spencer, 
Huxley,  and  Etnmerson,  that  nothing  is  real  but  thought,  that  matter 
alone  is  real,  that  spirit  only  has  reality,  and  that  '  it  is  certain  that  we 
can  have  no  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  either  matter  or  spirit,'  that  we 
'  know  this  only,  that  we  nothing  know,'  and,  finally,  that  with  these  self- 
affirmed  world-thinkers  we  are  descending  the  rungs  of  a  ladder  that 
leads  down  into  the  abyss  of  the  eternal  sleep,  *  perhaps  to  dream '  there, 
and  whether  we  shall  or  shall  nut  dream,  or  '  what  dreams  may  come ' 
there,  these  men  cannot  assure  us. 

What  reason  have  we  to  suppose  that  this  hydra-headed  '  New  Philo- 
sophy,' which  is,  in  fact,  as  old  as  the  revelations  of  Gautama  Buddha, 
will  produce  any  better  results  in  the  present  than  it  has  in  past  ages  ? 
With  what  new  and  all-vitalizing  principles  has  it  been  galvanized  1 
What  has  this  Philosophy  done  for  France,  whose  Communists  desecrated 
and  burned  the  cathedrals  and  churches  of  Paris,  as  buildings  *  owned 
by  a  Mr.  Jehovah '1  Under  these  old  systems,  which  are  being  com- 
mended to  the  world  as  something  *  new  under  the  sun,'  are  we  likely  to 
have  a  millennium  of  pure  morals  and  universal  physical  plenty  1  What 
is  there  intrinsic  in  these  systems  that  gives  promise  of  such  results? 
•  When  we  come  to  think  that  a  human  soul  may  be  developed  out  of 
'  mutton,'  that  thought,  feeling,  and  willing  are  nothing  but  '  molecular 
changes  in  the  matter  of  life,'  that  human  progression  is  *  advancing  from 
the  definite  homogeneous  to  the  definite  heterogeneous,'  that  '  matter  and 
spirit  are  nothing  but  names  for  imaginary  substrata  of  groups  of  natural 
phenomena,'  that  *  matter  may  be  regarded  as  a  form  of  thought,'  and 
that  '  thought  may  be  regarded  as  a  property  of  matter,'  that  we  *  have 
no  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  either  matter  or  spirit,'  that  knowledge  is 
possible  but  in  reference  to  *  things  without  us,'  that  knowledge  is  impos- 
sible but  in  reference  to  things  within  us^  that '  being  and  knowing  are 


136  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PIIILOSOPhY. 

one  and  identical,'  that  our  great-grftat-great-grandmammas  and  papas 
were  monkeys,  that  '  the  inmates  of  our  prisons  and  brotliels  are  advanc- 
ing towards  eternal  life,*  and  that  '  death  is  our  eternal  sleep,'  when 
physiology  shall  have  for  ever  supplanted  and  superseded  metaphysics, 
and  *  the  realm  of  matter  and  law  is  co-extensive  with  knowledge,  with 
feeling,  and  with  action,'  and  Materialism  shall  be  repudiated  '  as  involv- 
ing grave  Philosophical  error,'  when  there  shall  be  a  deep  and  dark  and 
permanent  eclipse  of  faith  in  the  doctrine  of  God,  duty,  and  immortality, 
and  all  religious  inquiry  shall  be  sneered  at  as  *  lunal  politics,'  when  this 
consummation  shall  have  been  reached,  will  not  the  A'ernal  bloom  of 
humanity  be  eternal  ?  On  the  other  hand,  have  we  not  already  the 
clearest  indications  that,  should  the  reign  of  the  ll^'ew  Philosophy  become 
universal, '  chaos  would  come  again,'  and  that  the  idea  of  existence  would 
be  in  the  regard  of  all  mankind  what  the  same  Philosophy  has  rendered 
it  to  three-fifths  of  the  race  for  more  than  two  thousand  years  ]  Have 
we  not  absolute  proof  that  the  New  Philosophy  has  already  rendered,  in 
the  judgment  of  its  most  enlightened  advocates,  even  eternal  existence  an 
object  not  to  be  desired,  and  the  loss  of  all  hope  of  such  an  existence  a 
matter  of  no  regret  1  These  men  speak  of  the  *  loss  of  this  intellectual 
being '  with  the  same  trifling  indifTcrence  that  they  do  of  the  annihilation 
of  the  vitality  of  a  mushroom  or  a  monkey.  Mr.  Huxley,  for  example, 
compares  '  the  great  lamentation  which  is  arising '  '  over  the  threatened 
extinction  by  matter '  of  the  human  soul  to  that '  which  was  heard  over 
the  death  of  Pan.'  Under  the  death-chill  which  this  Philosophy,  from 
its  very  nature,  brings  over  the  mind,  the  idea  of  existence,  and  especially 
of  eternal  existence,  ceases,  of  necessity,  to  have  any  attractions  to  the 
mind.  An  aged  man  of  our  acquaintance,  a  man  of  intelligence,  wealth, 
and  influence  in  community,  this  man,  on  being  condoled  with  on  the 
recent  loss  of  the  wife  of  his  youth,  and  the  mother  of  a  large  family  of 
promising  children,  exclaimed  :  '  Tut,  what  do  I  care  about  that  woman  ? 
I  can  get  another  as  good  as  she  in  a  week.'  We  drew  this  inference  from 
this  fact,  that  that  pure  and  devoted  wife  and  mother  had  ceased  to  be  *  a 
thing  of  beauty  '  or  wealth  in  the  estimation  of  that  husband.  So,  when  we 
hear  the  advocates  of  this  falsely  so-called  New  Philosophy  treating  with  • 
contempt  all  regard  for  the  soul's  immortality  and  dread  of  the  final  loss 
of  *  those  thoughts  that  wander  through  eternity/  we  do  them  no  wrong 
when  we  infer  that  their  Philosophy  is  doing  in  them  wliat  the  same 
Philosophy  did  in  the  mind  of  Gautama  Buddha  more  tlian  two  thousand 
years  ago,  and  that  here  we  have  an  undeniable  revelation  of  the  neces- 
sary *  death-doings '  of  that  Philosophy.  The  validity  of  all  ihe&e  state- 
ments will  be  fuUy  verified  in  subsequent  in^uiriesb 


PAET  IT. 

TEE    GRECIAN    PHILOSOPHY. 
INTRODUCTIOIT. 

SECTION  L 

THE  RELATIONS  OF  THE  GREEKS  TO  THE  ORIENTAL  NATIONS. 

Grecian  civilization,  religion,  and  Philosophy,  aa  is  well  known,  were 
all  of  later  growth  and  development  than  those  of  Egypt  and  other  lead- 
ing Oriental  nations.  The  former,  also,  though  in  certain  important 
particulars  peculiarized  by  the  genius  and  institutions  of  the  people,  were 
all,  in  certain  particulars  equally  important,  determined  by  the  latter. 

The  leading  statesmen,  literati,  and  philosophers  of  Greece,  travelled 
extensively  among  Oriental  nations,  studied  in  their  schools,  acquainted 
themselves  with  their  civilization,  arts,  literature,  science,  Philosophies, 
religion,  and  institutions,  and,  on  their  return  to  their  native  country, 
imparted  to  their  countrymen  the  knowledge  with  which  foreign  travel 
and  study  had  furnished  them.  Egypt  and  other  Oriental  nations  were 
to  Greece  what  Germany  has  for  a  long  period  been  to  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race.  The  Anglo-Saxon  who  would  perfect  himself  in  any  of  the  leading 
sciences  very  commonly  finishes  his  education  in  some  of  the  great 
universities  of  Germany.  Grecian  scholars,  in  like  manner,  finished 
their  education  in  the  schools  of  their  Oriental  neighbours. 

The  Greek  scholar,  however,  was  not,  any  more  than  the  Anglo-Saxon, 
a  mere  copyist.  Oriental  thought,  when  subjected  to  the  scrutiny  of 
the  Greek  mind,  took  on,  in  many  important  respects,  new  forms  and 
aspects.  This  was  especially  true  of  systems  of  Philosophy.  When  a 
given  system  passed  over  from  an  Oriental  nation  to  Greece,  that  system 
most  commonly  stood  connected,  in  the  latter  country,  with  problems 


138  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

unknown  to  Oriental  thought,  and  disconnected,  from  important  elements 
with  which  it  was  originally  associated. 

In  Greece,  also,  systems  of  Philosophy  appear  which  have  no  place 
whatever  in  Oriental  thought.  In  the  study  of  the  Greek  Philosophy  we 
shall  meet  with  old  systems  connected  with  new  problems  and  discon- 
nected from  certain  old  associations,  'and  with  new  systems  unknown  to 
Oriental  thought.  The  following  facts  and  statements  will  present  a 
sufficiently  adequate  view  of  the  resemblances  and  differences  which 
obtain  between  the  Grecian  and  Oriental  systems. 

CORRESPONDBNCKS    AXD   DIFFERENCES   BETWEEN    THE  GbEOIAN   AND    THE 

Oriental  Systems. 

1.  In  the  Oriental  systems,  that  of  Zoroaster  excepted,  the  doctrine  of 
God  is  either  denied,  as  in  the  Materialistic,  Dualistic,  Subjective,  and 
Pure  Idealistic  systems,  or  is  affirmed  but  in  the  strictly  Pantheistic 
sense,  as  in  the  Vedanta,  Chinese,  and  Egyptian  systems.  In  the 
Grecian  systems  we  meet  with  not  only  all  these  forms  of  doctrine,  hut 
also  with  that  of  an  infinite,  perfect,  and  personal  God,  a  God  distinct 
from  nature  and  exercising  a  providential  and  moral  government  over  the 
universe.  The  doctrine  of  one  supreme,  personal  God  was,  as  we  shall 
find  hereafter,  the  popular  doctrine  of  Greece. 

2.  In  tlie  Oriental  systems,  with  the  single  exception  referred  to,  we 
have  the  doctrine  of  creation  in  but  two  forms,  that  of  natural  law  and 
by  emanation.  In  the  Grecian  systems  we  find,  in  addition  to  these  two 
forms  of  doctrine,  that  of  creation  proper,  creation  '  by  the  word  of 
God.'  This  last  form  of  doctrine  was,  as  we  shall  find,  the  generally 
received  doctrine  of  the  people,  and  constituted  the  fundamental  elements 
of  systems  taught  by  such  thinkers  as  Thales,  Anaxagoras,  Empedocles, 
Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle. 

3.  The  doctrine  of  transmigration,  which  constitutes  an  essential 
element  of  most  of  the  Oriental  systems,  seldom  has  place,  but  in  a 
modified  form,  among  the  Greeks.  Plato,  for  example,  held  the  doctrine 
of  the  pre-existence  of  the  soul.  The  latter  state,  however,  he  held  to  be 
superior  to  the  present,  as  the  future  will  be.  Transmigration,  in  the 
Oriental  sense,  was  from  human  to  brute  conditions  of  existence.  Plato 
desired  death  as  the  condition  of  restoration  to  pre-existing  relations  to 
the  Infinite,  the  True,  and  the  Good.  The  popular  theology  of  Greece 
affirmed  the  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul  in  its  proper  sense. 

4.  The  method  of  philosophizing  which  obtained  among  the  Orientals 
was  almost,  or  quite,  exclusively  it  priori.  While  this  was  adopted  in 
many  of  the  schools  of  Greece,  in  others  the  (i,  posteriori,  or  inductive 
method,  was  adopted.  In  this  country,  indeed,  the  only  true  method 
was  originated. 


RELATION  OF  THE  GREEKS  TO  THE  ORIENTAL  NATIONS.    139 

6.  While  the  moral  teachings  of  the  Materialistic  and  Idealistic  schools 
of  Greece  perfectly  accorded  with  those  of  the  same  schools  in  Oriental 
countries,  in  the  proper  Theistic  schools  of  Greece,  the  doctrine  of  Eight 
and  Wrong,  Duty,  Moral  Desert,  and  Retribution,  received  a  distinct- 
ness of  recognition  and  fulness  of  elucidation  totally  foreign  to  Oriental 
thought,  the  system  of  Zoroaster  excepted.  The  moral  teachings  of  such 
men  as  Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle,  though  in  many  respects  imperfect, 
were  preparatory  to  the  introduction  of  Christianity. 

In  Greece  we  have  all  the  Oriental  systems  fully  represented  with 
their  special  methods  of  philosophizing,  and  with  their  Theistic  doctrines 
and  moral  teachings  fully  developed,  the  doctrine  of  transmigration  and 
kindred  appendages  heing  finally  omitted.  In  Greece,  also,  we  have 
what  we  do  not  find  in  the  product  of  Oriental  thought,  the  introduction 
of  a  new  method  in  Philosophy,  a  method  which,  in  the  sphere  of  meta- 
physics especially,  thinkers  have  been  slow  to  appreciate  and  adjopt,  a 
method  which,  when  perfected  and  carried  out  to  its  ultimate  deductions, 
will  dissipate  the  baleful  fog  in  which  false  science  has  bewildered  the 
human  mind,  and  lead  it  out  into  the  clear  sunlight  of  absolute  truth. 


SECTION-  IL 

THE  EELIGION  OF  THE  GREEKS. 

To  unrf  erstand  the  philosophy  of  any  people,  we  must  know  their  religion. 
To  know  their  religion,  also,  we  must  understand  their  philosophy.  To 
comprehend  fully  the  genius  and  character  of  the  people,  we  must  know 
both  their  religion  and  their  philosophy.  Nor  will  the  religion  and 
philosophy  of  any  people  become  fully  developed  and  perfected  until 
their  religion  assumes  the  form  of  real  science,  and  their  philosophy 
becomes,  both  in  its  spirit  and  ultimate  deductions,  really  and  truly 
religious.  The  philosophy  of  any  people  will  either  affirm  or  deny  their 
religious  ideas  and  principles,  and  in  fundamental  particulars  their  religious 
ideas  and  principles  will  take  form  from  their  philosophic  teachings  and 
deductions.  Hence  the  importance  of  a  distinct  understanding  of  the 
religion  of  the  Greeks,  as  preparatory  to  an  elucidation  of  their  systems 
of  Philosophy. 

Grecian  Polytheism. 
In  common  apprehension  the  religion  of  this  people  was  exclusively 
idolatrous  and  polytheistic  in  its  character.  That  they  were  idolaters 
and  did  *  worship  and  serve  the  creature  more  than  the  Creator,'  and 
finally,  'that  the  things  which  they  sacrificed,  they  sacrificed  to  devils 
and  not  to  God,'  are  not  only  truths  of  inspired  testimony,  but  undeniable 


140  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

facts  of  history.  Not  one  of  '  the  gods  many  and  lords  many,'  which 
■were  the  common  objects  of  popular  worship,  were,  even  in  the  regard  of 
the  worshipper,  morally  pure,  or  could  be  worshipped  without  morally 
debasing  the  worshipper.  These  facts  were  admitted  and  deplored  by 
the  best  thinkers  and  writers  of  the  nation.  Nor  were  these  multi- 
tudinous so-called  divinities,  in  the  regard  of  their  worshippers,  uncreated, 
and  eternally  existing  personalities.  On  the  other  hand,  they  were 
'  worshipped  and  served '  as  created  beings,  creatures  of  time,  erring  and 
sinful,  like,  and  often  more  corrupt  and  morally  debased  than,  their 
worshippers. 

The  worship  of  Venus,  for  example,  was  the  worship  of  a  surpassingly 
beautiful,  but  of  an  openly  acknowledged  prostitute.  One  of  the  Grecian 
moralists  affirms  that  if  he  could  approach  her,  he  would  thrust  her 
through  with  his  spear  on  account  of  her  demoralizing  influence  upon  the 
people. 

*  Could  I  but  only  seize  Afrodite '  (Venus),  says  Antisthenes,  the  friend 
of  Socrates,  *  I  would  pierce  her  through  with  a  javelin,  so  many  virtuous 
and  excellent  women  has  she  seduced  among  us.' 

Any  one  who  will  read  Professor  Tholuck  *  On  the  Nature  and  Moral 
Influence  of  Heathenism '  will  be  fully  convinced  that  what  Paul  has 
affirmed  in  the  first  chapter  of  Eomans  and  elsewhere  upon  the  subject  is 
but  the  shadow  of  the  reality.  The  historians  of  the  time,  Petronius 
especially,  give  us  such  specific  facts  as  the  following :  *  The  temples 
•were  frequented,  splendid  sacrifices  were  made,  altars  were  crowned,  and 
prayers  were  offered  to  the  gods  in  order  that  the  gods  might  render 
nights  of  unnatural  lust  agreeable !  that  they  might  be  favourable  to 
acts  of  poisoning;  that  they  might  cause  robberies  of  widows  and  orphans 
to  prosper.'  'How  great  is  now,'  exclaims  Seneca,  '  the  madness  of  men. 
They  lisp  the  most  abominable  prayers  in  the  ears  of  the  gods ;  and  if  a 
man  is  found  listening,  they  are  silent.  What  a  man  ought  not  to  hear, 
they  do  not  blush  to  rehearse  to  God.'  Yet  Eoman  Polytheism  was 
known  to  have  been  far  less  corrupting  than  the  Grecian. 

The  Monotheism  of  Ch'eece. 

But  were  the  Greeks  simply  Polytheists?  Did  they  not,  also,  believe 
in  one  supreme  God,  the  Creator  of  the  universe  1  The  gods  of  popular 
worship  were,  as  we  have  seen,  distinctly  and  definitely  regarded  as 
created  and  finite  beings.  Did  they,  also,  recognize  the  being,  perfec- 
tion, creative  energy,  and  supreme  control  of  one  eternal  and  uncreated 
divinity  1  The  Scriptures  affirm  of  the  heathen  that  '  they  know  God, 
but  do  not  glorify  Him  as  God.*  We  have  the  most  absolute  historic 
proofs  of  the  perfect  and  unqualified  truthfulness  of  this  testimony. 

So  universal  and   omnipresent  among  even  the  common  people  of 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  GREEKS.  141 

Greece  and  Rome  was  the  idea  of  one  supreme  God,  that  under  sudden 
and  unexpected  perils  they  never  prayed  to  any  one,  or  to  all  their  minor 
gods,  but  always  to  the  one  only  living  and  true  God ;  and  they  never 
turned  their  faces  in  prayer  toward  their  idol  temples,  but  always  upward 
toward  God  Himself.  This  impressive  fact  is  stated  both  by  Christian 
and  heathen  writers.  *  The  common  people,'  says  Tertullian,  *  in  the 
deepest  emotions  of  their  minds  never  direct  their  exclamations  to  their 
false  gods,  but  employ  the  words,  By  God/  As  truly  as  God  lives /  God 
help  me  I  Moreover,  they  do  not  thereby  have  their  view  directed  to  the 
capitol,  but  to  heaven.'  Aulus  Gellius  says,  *  The  ancient  Romans  were 
not  accustomed,  during  an  earthquake,  to  pray  to  some  one  of  the  gods 
individually,  but  only  to  God  in  the  general,  as  the  Unknown.'  Lactan- 
tius  dwells  more  extensively  upon  this,  and  remarks  that  *  it  was  in 
misfortune  and  danger  that  they  made  use  particularly  of  the  appellation 
Deus.  After  the  danger  and  fear  were  over,'  he  adds,  *  they  then  resorted 
to  their  temples.' 

The  concurrence  of  the  learned  and  the  ignorant  throughout  the  Pagan 
world  in  the  doctrine  of  one  supreme  God  is  thus  affirmed  by  Maxiniua 
Tyrius,  a  celebrated  heathen  philosopher  :  *  If  there  were  a  meeting 
called  of  aU  the  several  trades  and  professions  ....  and  all  were  re- 
quired to  declare  their  sense  concerning  God,  do  you  think  that  the 
painter  would  say  one  thing,  the  sculptor  another,  the  poet  another,  the 
philosopher  another  ?  No ;  nor  the  Scythian  neither,  nor  the  Greek, 
nor  the  Hyperborean.  In  regard  to  other  things  we  find  men  speaking 
discordantly  one  to  another,  all  men,  as  it  were,  diflering  from  all  men. 
....  Nevertheless,  on  this  subject  you  may  find  universally  throughout 
the  world  one  agreeing  law  and  opinion,  that  there  is  one  God,  the  King 
and  Father  of  All,  and  many  gods  the  sons  of  God,  and  co-reiguers 
together  with  God.' 

The  tragic  and  comic  poets  of  Greece  were  among  the  educators  of  the 
popular  mind  in  religion,  and  at  the  same  time  most  distinctly  and  speci- 
fically represent  the  popular  belief  in  respect  to  the  subject  now  under  con- 
sideration. In  their  writings  the  doctrine  of  one,  and  only  one,  supreme, 
all-perfect,  personal  God,  is  most  distinctly  and  absolutely  affirmeil. 

.^chylus,  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  influential  authors  of  this  class, 
applies  to  God  such  expressions  as  the  following,  expressions  which,  as 
Dr.  Cocker  well  observes,  *  approach  very  nearly  to  the  Christian  idea  of 
God,'  to  wit,  '  He  is  the  Universal  Father,'  '  Father  of  gods  and  men,' 
*  the  Universal  Cause,'  *  the  All-seer  and  All-doer,'  *  the  All-wise  and  All- 
controlling,'  *  the  Just  and  the  Executor  of  Justice,'  *  true  and  incapable 
of  falsehood,"  holy/  'merciful,'  'the  God  especially  of  the  suppliant  and 
the  stranger,'  'the  Most  High,*  'Perfect  One,'  'King  of  kings,  of  the 
happy  most  happy,  of  the  perfect  most  perfect  for  ever,  blessed  Zeus.* 


142  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Sophocles,  the  most  celebrated  of  all  the  tragic  poets,  thus  sets  forth 
the  doctrine  of  but  one  supreme  God  :  '  There  is,  in  truth,  one  only  God, 
who  made  heaven  and  earth,  the  sea,  air,  and  winds.'  Other  stauzas 
from  the  same  author  are  thus  rendered  by  one  of  our  own  poets: 

'  Still  in  yon  starry  heaven  supreme, 
Jove,  all-beholding,  all-directing,  dwells, 
Spurning  the  power  of  age,  enthroned  in  might. 
Thou  dwellest  mid  heaven's  broad  light ; 
This  was,  in  ages  past,  Thy  firm  decree, 
Is  now  and  shall  for  ever  be.' 

Philemon,  the  comedian,  thus  speaks :  *  Believe  in  one  God  and 
revere  Him.'  'Eevere  Him  continually  as  being  and  as  being  nigh  thee.' 
Two  Greek  poets  have  given  utterance  to  the  doctrine  cited  by  Paul, 
'  We  are  all  His  offspring.'  The  stanza  from  Aratus  of  Cilicia,  Paul's 
native  cit}',  is  thus  rendered,  a  stanza  especially  noticeable  as  expressing 
both  the  omnipresence  and  all-presiding  providence  and  agency  of  God  : 

'  Jove's  presence  fills  all  space,  upholds  this  ball, 
All  need  His  aid  ;  His  power  sustains  us  all. 
For  we  His  offspring  are.' 

Cleanthus,  who  was  both  a  poet  and  philosopher,  thus  speaks : 

•  Great  and  divine  Father,  whose  names  are  many, 
But  who  art  one  and  the  same  unchangeable,  almighty  power, 
O  thou  supreme  Author  of  Nature  1 
That  govemest  by  a  single,  unerring  law  ! 

Hail,  King! 
For  Thou  art  able  to  enforce  obedience  from  all  frail  mortals, 
Because  we  are  all  Thine  offspring, 
The  image  and  the  echo  only  of  Thine  eternal  voice.' 

The  same  doctrine  we  find  avowed  by  the  most  eminent  authors  and 
philosophers  of  Greece.  Longinus,  for  example,  cites,  not  only  as  an 
example  of  the  sublime,  but  with  expressions  of  especial  admiration,  the 
first  verse  of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  '  In  the  beginning,  God  created 
the  heavens  and  the  earth.' 

Zenophon  not  only  avows  a  belief  in  this  doctrine,  but  defends  at  great 
length,  and  with  much  ability,  the  views  of  Socrates  upon  the  same 
subject.  In  a  letter  to  ^schines  he  says,  *  For  that  divine  things  lie 
beyond  our  knowledge  is  clear  to  all;  it  is  enough,  therefore,  to  revere  the 
power  of  God,  which  is  above  all  things.' 

Plutarch,  in  the  following  passage,  not  only  avows  his  own,  and  the 
common  belief  among  all  nations,  in  the  doctrine  of  one  supreme  God, 
but  also  the  distinction  between  this  supreme  God  and  subordinate 
divinities.  *  We  do  not  believe  that  there  are  different  gods  among  different 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  GREEKS,  I43 

nations  of  men,  the  Grecian  and  the  foreij^n,  the  southern  and  the  northern, 
but  as  the  same  sun  and  moon  and  heaven  and  earth  and  sea  are  common 
to  all  men,  though  differently  denominated  by  different  nations,  so  in 
diverse  countries  there  are  different  kiuds  of  worship  and  different  appel- 
lations fixed  by  the  laws,  while  one  Intelligence  orders  all,  and  one 
Providence  orders  all,  and  subordinate  powers  are  appointed  over  all.' 

The  leading  Greek  philosophers,  while  they  admitted  a  plurality  of 
inferior  so-called  gods,  unitedly  aflBrmed  the  doctrine  of  one,  supreme, 
uncreated,  all-perfect,  and  all-controlling,  personal  God.  We  refer,  of 
course,  to  such  individuals  as  Thales,  the  Father  of  Greek  Philosophy, 
Xenophanes,  Anaxagoras,  Empedocles,  Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle. 

*  God,'  says  Thales,  *  is  the  oldest  of  all  things,  because  He  is  unmade 
and  ungenerated.'  'There  is  one  God,'  says  Xenophanes,  'the  greatest 
among  gods  and  men.'  'All  things  that  are  upon  the  earth,'  says  Em- 
pedocles, '  may  be  truly  called  the  works  of  God,  who  ruleth  over  the 
world,  out  of  whom  proceed  all  things,  plants,  men,  beasts,  and  gods.' 
This  supreme  God,  he  tells  us,  '  is  wholly  and  perfectly  mind,  ineffable, 
holy,  with  rapid,  swift  glancing  thought  pervading  the  whole  world.* 

*He  who  raised  the  whole  universe,'  says  Socrates,  'and  still  upholds 
the  mighty  frame.  Who  perfected  every  part  of  it  in  beauty,  and  in 
goodness,  suffering  none  of  those  parts  to  decay  through  age,  but  renew- 
ing them  daily  with  unfading  vigour — even  He,  the  Supreme  God,  still 
holds  Himself  invisible,  and  it  is  only  in  His  works  that  we  are  capable 
of  admiring  Him.' 

The  following  quotation  from  the  work  of  Dr.  Cocker  on  'Christianity 
and  the  Greek  Philosophy '  presents  all  that  need  be  said  in  this  connec 
tion,  in  regard  to  the  views  of  Plato,  on  this  subject : 

*  It  were  needless  to  attempt  the  proof  that  Flato  believed  in  one 
Supreme  God,  and  mdy  one.  This  one  being  is  with  him  '^the  first 
God ;"  "the  greatest  of  the  gods  ;"  "the  God  over  all ;"  "  the  sole  prin- 
ciple of  the  universe."  He  is  "the  immutable,"  "  the  All-perfect,"  "  the 
eternal  Being."  He  is  "  the  Architect  of  the  world  ;"  "  the  Maker  of 
the  universe ;"  "  the  Father  of  gods  and  men ;"  "  the  sovereign  Mind 
which  orders  all  things,  and  passes  through  all  things;"  "  the  sole  Monarch 
and  Euler  of  the  world." ' 

In  the  following  passage  Aristotle  not  only,  as  he  does  most  abso* 
lutely  elsewhere,  avows  his  belief  in  one  Supreme  God,  but  also  the 
great  fact  which  we  have  so  strongly  maintained  elsewhere,  that  the 
then-existing  Polytheism  was  a  corruption  of  the  ancient  Monotheism. 
'The  tradition  has  come  down  to  us,'  he  says,  'from  very  ancient  times, 
being  left  in  a  mythical  garb  to  succeeding  generations,  that  these '  (the 
heavenly  bodies)  *  are  gods,  and  that  the  Divinity  encompasses  the  whole 
of  nature.     There  have  been  made,  however,  to  these  certain  fabulous 


144  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


additions  for  the  purpose  of  winning  the  belief  of  the  multitude,  and 
thus  securing  their  obedience  to  their  vows,  and  their  co-operation 
towards  advancing  the  general  welfare  of  the  state.  These  additions  have 
been  to  the  effect  that  these  gods  were  of  the  same  form  as  men,  and 
even  that  some  of  them  were  in  appearance  similar  to  certain  others 
amongst  the  rest  of  the  animal  creation.  The  wise  course,  however, 
would  be  for  the  philosopher  to  disengage  from  these  traditions  the  false 
element,  and  to  embrace  that  which  is  true ;  and  the  truth  lies  in  that 
portion  of  this  ancient  doctrine  which  regards  the  first  and  deepest 
grounds  of  all  existence  to  be  the  Divine,  and  this  we  may  regard  as  a 
divine  utterance. 

*In  all  probability  every  art,  science,  and  philosophy  has  been  over  and 
over  again  discussed  to  the  farthest  extent  possible,  and  then  again  lost  ; 
and  we  may  conceive  these  opinions  to  have  been  preserved  to  us  as  a 
sort  of  fragment  of  these  lost  philosophies.  We  see,  then,  to  some  extent, 
the  relation  of  the  popular  belief  to  these  ancient  opinions.' 

The  specific  denials  of  this  one  doctrine,  that  of  one,  and  only  one, 
Supreme  God,  the  denials  which  appear  in  all  forms  of  the  Atheistic  and 
Sceptical  systems  of  the  Greek  Philosophy,  clearly  evince  the  existence 
of  that  doctrine  as  an  essential  element  of  the  popular  faith  among  this 
people.  Philosophers — we  repeat  what  we  have  formerly  stated — are  not 
accustomed  to  deny  what  is  not  generally  believed.  Thus  Protagoras,  of 
Abdera,  was,  for  his  avowed  Scepticism,  banished  from  the  city,  and  his 
books  burned  in  a  public  assembly  of  the  people. 

We  should  here  remark  that  the  Supreme  God  of  the  popular  faith  of 
the  Greeks  was  no  impersonal  essence  like  the  God  of  Pantheism,  but  a 
free,  self-conscious  personality,  the  Creator  proper  of  a  created  universe. 
Such  was,  also,  the  character  of  God  as  affirmed  in  the  theistic  and 
denied  in  the  anti-theistic  philosophies  of  that  people.  In  one  form  the 
Greeks,  with  the  Roman  and  surrounding  nations,  were  idolaters  and 
Polytheists.  As  far  as  the  doctrine  of  one,  and  only  one,  supreme, 
eternally  existing,  all-creating,  and  all-controlling,  personal  God  is  con- 
cerned, they  were,  in  the  strictest  sense,  Monotheists.  This  great  fact 
will  be  a  central  light  in  all  our  future  inquiries  and  deductions. 

SECTION  IIL 

NATURE,  CHARACTEH,  AND  MUTUAL  RELATIONS  OF  KNOWLEDGE 
A  PRIORI  AND  A  POSTERIORI.  THESE  FORMS  OF  KNOWLEDGE 
DISTINGUISHED  AND  DEFINED. 

All  philosophers  of  all  schools  of  the  present  era  of  science,  with  very 
few  exceptions,  agree,  that  actual  knowledge  in  these  two  forms  does 
fxist  in  the  human  mind.     An  agreement  equally  universal  also  obtains 


KNOWLEDGE  A  PRIORI  AND  A  POSTERIORI  145 

in  respect  to  the  general  and  distinguishing  characteristics  of  these  two 
kinds  of  knowledge.  Whatever  form  of  knowledge  has  the  fixed 
characteristics  of  ahsolute  universality  and  necessity  takes  rank  as  know- 
ledge A  priori.  Forms  of  real  knowledge,  on  the  other  hand,  which  want 
these  characteristics,  are  denominated  knowledge  H  posteriori. 

Ideas  whose  objects  are  apprehended  as  real,  with  the  absolute  impos- 
sibility of  conceiving  them  as  not  being  real,  or  as  being,  in  any  respects, 
difterent  from  what  we  apprehend  them  to  be,  we  call  necessary  ideas, 
and  our  knowledge  of  such  objects  is  denominated  knowledge  it  priori. 
Ideas,  on  the  other  hand,  whose  objects  are  known  to  be  real,  with  the 
possibility  of  conceiving  of  their  non-reality,  or  of  their  being  different 
from  what  we  apprehend  them  to  be,  are  denominated  contingent  ideas, 
and  the  knowledge  we  have  of  such  objects  is  denominated  knowledge 
h  posteriori. 

Time  and  space,  for  example,  are  apprehended  as  real,  with  the  absolute 
impossibility  of  conceiving  them  not  to  be  realities,  or  as  being,*  in  any 
respect,  different  from  what  we  apprehend  them  to  be.  We  accordingly 
designate  our  ideas  of  these  realities  as  necessary  ideas,  and  afiirra  said 
realities  to  be  the  objects  of  a  priori  knowledge.  Matter  and  spirit,  011 
the  other  hand,  we  know  to  be  realities  in  themselves ;  while  we  thus 
know  them,  we  can  conceive  of  their  non-reality,  or  as  being  different 
realities  from  what  we  apprehend  them  to  be.  We  therefore  designate 
our  ideas  of  these  realities  as  contingent  ideas,  and  regard  said  realities  as 
the  objects  of  knowledge  it  posteriori. 

The  same  distinction  obtains  in  regard  to  judgments.  Those  judgments 
which  we  know  to  be  universally  true,  with  the  absolute  impossibility  of 
conceiving  them  as  not  being  true,  we  denominate  necessary  judgments, 
or  judgments  h  priori.  Those  judgments,  on  the  other  hand,  which  we 
know  to  be  true,  with  the  possibility  of  conceiving  of  them  as  not  being 
true,  are  denominated  contingent  judgments,  or  judgments  d,  posteriori. 

Such  judgments  as  the  following,  Body  implies  space.  Succession 
implies  time,  Events  imply  a  cause,  Phenomena  imply  substance,  and 
Things  equal  to  the  same  thing  are  equal  to  one  another,  are  necessary, 
or  d,  priori  judgments.  The  reason  is  obvious.  We  not  only  know  such 
propositions  to  be  true,  but  know  equally  that  they  must  be  true,  their 
non-truth  being  absolutely  inconceivable,  and,  consequently,  impossible. 
Such  propositions,  on  the  other  hand,  as  Mind  exists.  Body  exists,  are 
known  with  absolute  certainty  to  be  true.  Yet  we  can  conceive  that 
they  may  not  be  true.  Such  judgments,  therefore,  we  denominate  con- 
tingent judgments,  or  judgments  A  posteriori.  The  judgment  Things 
equal  to  the  same  things  are  not  equal  to  one  another,  for  example,  is 
false  not  only  in  fact,  but  self-contradictory,  and  therefore  absurd.     The 

10 


146  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

judgment  Mind  does  not  exist  is  false  in  fact,  though  not  self-evidently 
80.     It  is  an  untrue,  but  not  an  absurd  proposition. 

A  fundamental  distinction  between  necessary  ideas  here  demands 
special  attention.  Those  of  time  and  space  have  absohite,  or  unconditional 
necessity.  Their  objects  must  exist  whether  any  other  realities  do,  or  do 
not,  exist.  The  ideas  represented  by  such  terms  as  substance  and  cause 
are  only  conditionally  necessary.  In  other  words,  events  and  phenomena 
being  given  as  real,  substances  and  causes  must  exist.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  phenomena  and  events  are  not  given  as  real,  substances  and  causes 
cannot  be  affirmed  to  exist.  The  ideas  of  substance  and  cause  are,  there- 
fore, not  regarded  as  unconditionally,  but  conditionally,  necessary.  We 
have,  then,  two,  and  only  two  unconditionally  necessary  ideas,  to  wit, 
those  of  time  and  space.  Such  ideas  as  those  of  substance,  cause,  and 
personal  identity,  are,  in  all  their  forms,  conditionally  necessary  ideas. 

Thus  far  we  have  gone  over  ground,  for  the  most  part,  occupied  in  the 
general  Introduction.  Nor  will  the  validity  of  the  above  expositions  and 
elucidations  be  questioned  by  real  thinkers  of  any  school.  The  relations 
really  existing  between  knowledge  A  priori  and  d,  posteriori  have  not  yet 
been  satisfactorily  determined  in  any  known  school  of  Philosophy.  Those 
relations  must  be  fully  determined,  or  we  shall  advance  without  clear 
insight  in  our  future  inquiries.  What,  then,  are  the  fixed  and  immutable 
relations  between  the  two  forms  of  knowledge  under  consideration,  to 
wit,  knowledge  d,  priori  and  d,  ^posteriori  f  They  are  among  others  the 
following: 

Eelations  between  Knowledge  b,  priori  and  b,  posteriori. 

1.  AS  far  as  certainty  is  concerned,  there  is  no  real  difference.  Real 
knowledge,  throughout  its  appropriate  sphere,  admits  of  no  degrees  as  far 
as  the  element  of  certainty  is  concerned.  1  know  myself,  for  example,  as 
a  personal  being,  exercising  the  functions  of  thought,  feeling,  and  willing, 
just  as  certainly  as  I  know  time  or  space.  Our  knowledge  of  facts  may 
be,  and  often  is,  just  as  real  and  certain  as  that  of  the  necessary  principles 
by  which  said  facts  are  explained  and  elucidated. 

Knowledge  h  priori  and  h  posteriori,  in  all  their  real  forms,  diflfer  as  far 
as  our  modes  of  apprehension  are  concerned,  but  not  in  respect  to  the 
element  of  certainty.  Apprehensions  which  have  the  elements  of  uncer- 
tainty in  them  are  not  forms  of  real  knowledge.  Our  knowledge  of  the 
essential  qualities  of  spirit,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  matter,  on  the  other, 
is,  in  fact,  just  as  real  and  certain,  as  is  that  of  space  and  time.  Great 
injury  is  done  to  the  cause  of  truth  when  it  is  admitted  that  the  charac- 
teristic of  uncertainty  inheres  in  our  apprehensions  of  the  essential 
qualities  of  these  substances.  It  should  be  borne  in  mind,  that  all  who 
impeach  the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  these  substances  do  the  same 


KNOWLEDGE  A  PRIORI  AND  A  POSTERIORI.  147 

in  respect  to  our  knowledge  of  the  objects  of  necessary  ideas  and  prin- 
ciples. Those  who  affirm  mere  relativity  of  our  knowledge  of  matter  and 
spirit  affirm  the  same  thing  of  our  knowledge  of  space  and  time,  and  of 
all  necessary  principles.  There  is  no  stopping  short  of  the  deduction, 
that  knowledge,  in  all,  or  in  none  of  its  real  forms,  has  the  element  of 
uncertainty  in  it 

2.  Knowledge  h  priori,  in  all  its  forms,  is  specifically  given  in  the 
universal  intelligence  as  directly  and  irameiliately  implied  by  knowledge 
d,  posteriori.  Hence,  the  principles  and  axioms  :  Body  implies  space,  Suc- 
cession implies  time,  Events  imply  a  cause,  and  Phenomena  imply  substance. 
In  all  such  judgments  the  subject  represents  the  perceived  or  d,  posteriori 
element,  and  the  predicate,  the  implied  or  d,  priori  element. 

We  have  here,  as  a  careful  analysis  will  absolutely  evince,  the  fixed 
and  immutable  relations  between  these  two  forms  of  knowledge.  The 
latter  is  always  given  through,  and  as  implied  by,  the  former.  If  we  had 
no  ideas  of  body  and  succession,  we  could  have  no  apprehensions  of  space 
or  time  which  are  given  in  the  universal  intelligence  only  as  the  real  or 
possible  places  of  substances  and  succession.  If  we  had  no  ideas  of 
phenomena  or  events,  we  could  have  none  of  substances  or  causes.  We 
know  space,  time,  substance,  and  cause,  but  as  implied  by  body,  succes- 
sion, phenomena,  and  events,  and  as  the  necessary  condition  of  their 
existence  and  occurrence.  If  we  had  no  ideas  of  events  occurring  in 
fixed  order,  we  should  have  none  of  law.  If  we  had  no  apprehensions 
of  agents  possessed  of  certain  powers,  and  existing  in  certain  relations  to 
each  other,  we  could  have  none  of  moral  law,  duty,  desert,  and  retribu- 
tion. Everywhere  when  the  d,  priori  form  of  knowledge  appears,  it  ia 
always  manifested  as  implied  by  definite  forms  of  &  posteriori  knowledge. 
In  the  latter  we  have  the  elements  of  perceived,  and  in  the  former  that  of 
implied  knowledge.  Unless  the  perceived  or  A  posteriori  elements  were 
given,  the  implied  or  A  priori  elements  could  not  be  given.  If  no 
phenomena  or  events  should  appear,  how  could  we  know  that  substances 
or  causes  do  exist  1  The  same  holds  true  universally.  Without  the  per- 
ceived or  els  posteriori  element,  we  could  not  have  the  implied  or  d,  priori 
element,  and  the  latter  is  always  given  through,  and  in  no  other  form 
but  as  implied  by,  the  former. 

3.  In  the  order  of  actual  developmerU  in  the  Intelligence,  the  A  posteriori 
always  precedes  the  d,  priori  form  of  knowledge.  In  other  words,  body, 
succession,  phenomena,  and  events  must  have  been  perceived  before  thero 
could  have  been  any  apprehension  of  space,  time,  substance,  and  cause. 
This  is  absolutely  evinced  by  the  fact  that  the  latter  are,  and  can  be, 
apprehended  but  as  sustaining  fixed  relations  to  the  former.  If  the 
d,  priori  form  of  knowledge  was  developed  in  the  mind  prior  to  the 
&  posteriori,  the  formOT  could  be  apprehended  without  reference  to  the 

10—2 


148  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

latter.  But  this  is  impossible.  We  cannot  define  space  and  time  but 
as  the  places  of  body  and  succession,  or  substance  and  cause  but  as 
realities  of  which  phenomena  are  properties  and  by  which  events  are 
produced.  We  can,  on  the  other  hand,  define  body,  succession, 
phenomena,  and  events  without  reference  to  space,  time,  substance,  or 
cause.  Nothing  can  be  more  evident  than  the  fact  that  in  the  order  of 
actual  origination,  the  h  posteriori  forms  of  knowledge  always  precede  the 
h  priori  and  occasion  and  imply  the  latter.  There, can  be  no  more  funda- 
mental mistake  in  psychology  than  is  made  by  the  assumption  that  the 
d,  primi  form  of  knowledge  does,  in  any  case,  precede  the  h  posteriori. 

4.  While,  in  the  order  of  actual  origination  in  the  Intelligence,  the 
A  posteriori  always  precedes  the  d>  priori  elements  of  knowledge,  in  the 
logical  order,  the  latter,  as  universally,  precedes  the  former.  In  other 
words,  if  space,  time,  substance,  and  cause  did  not  exist,  there  could  by 
no  possibility  be  any  such  realities  as  body,  succession,  phenomena,  or 
events.  The  reality  of  the  object  of  the  d,  priori  is  always  given  as  the 
necessary  condition  of  the  possibility  of  the  reality  of  the  object  of  the 
d,  posteriori  form  of  knowledge.  Science  is  greatly  indebted  to  Cousin 
for  having  developed  and  evinced  the  logical  and  chronological  order  of 
these  two  forms  of  knowledge. 

5.  A  careful  and  correct  analysis  of  the  elements  which  constitute  these 
two  forms  of  knowledge  will,  as  already  indicated,  absolutely  evince  the 
fact  that  the  elements  of  the  h  posteriori  are  all  given  by  perception 
external  or  internal,  or  by  both  combined ;  while  those  of  the  h,  piori 
are  implied  by,  and  given  through,  what  is  perceived.  We  perceive 
body,  succession,  phenomena,  and  events.  On  occasion  of  such  percep- 
tions and  through  the  same,  we  apprehend  space,  time,  substance,  and 
cause,  as  implied  by  what  we  perceive. 

Necessary  Deductions  from  the  Preceding  Analysis. 

"We  now  advance  to  a  consideration  of  certain  necessary  deductions 
from  the  preceding  analysis.  Among  those  which  might  be  adduced, 
special  attention  is  requested  to  the  following : 

1.  All  the  original  elements  of  knowledge  it  posteriori  are  given,  as  we 
have  seen,  through  perception  external  and  internal.  This  fact  implies 
two  faculties  of  perception,  that  which  perceives  internal  or  subjective, 
and  that  which  perceives  external  or  objective  phenomena.  The  former 
we  denominate  Consciousness,  or  more  properly,  perhaps,  Self-conscious- 
ness. The  latter  we  denominate  Sense.  The  faculty  of  implied  or  h  priori 
knowledge,  we  designate  by  the  term  Eeason.  Consciousness,  Sense,  and 
Eeason  are  the  primary  faculties  of  the  Intelligence,  and  furnish  the 
original  elements  of  universal  knowledge  in  all  its  forms.  The  secondary 
faculties — the   understanding   or  conceptive  faculty,   the  judgment   oz 


KNOWLEDGE  A  PRIORI  AND  A  POSTERIORI.  149 

logical  faculty,  the  memory  or  associating  principle,  and  the  imagination 
or  blending  faculty — all  do  and  must  operate  exclusively  upon  materials 
furnished  by  these  three  primary  faculties. 

2.  The  spheres  and  exclusive  functions  of  these  primary  faculties  are 
also,  by  the  preceding  analysis,  perfectly  fixed  and  determinable.  The 
exclusive  sphere  of  Self-consciousness  is  to  give  the  mind  itself  in  the 
actual  exercise  of  its  faculties.  That  of  Sense  is  to  give  matter  through 
its  manifested  properties.  That  of  Eeason  is  to  give  the  realities  implied 
by  what  is  perceived  through  Sense  and  Consciousness,  realities  such  as 
space,  time,  substance,  and  cause.  Each  faculty  has  absolute  authority 
within  its  own  sphere.  Keason  can  merely  give  what  is  implied  by 
objects  perceived,  and  has  no  authority  whatever  in  determining  the 
validity  or  non-validity  of  perception.  Nor  has  one  perceptive  faculty 
any  authority  in  determining  the  validity  of  the  dicta  of  the  other. 
What,  for  example,  has  Sense  to  do  in  the  determination  of  the  reality  or 
non-reality  of  facts  of  mind,  or  of  the  validity  or  non-validity  of  our 
knowledge  of  the  same  %  Consciousness,  also,  can  do  no  more  than  give 
the  actual  form  of  external  perception,  the  fact  that  it  is  direct  or  indirect. 
With  the  validity  of  the  perception.  Consciousness  has  nothing  to  do. 

How  can  the  secondary  faculties  judge  of  the  validity  or  non- validity 
of  the  affirmations  of  any  or  all  of  the  primary  ones  ?  There  can  be  no 
more  absurd  procedure  in  science  than  that  in  which  an  attempt  is  made 
to  force  one  faculty  into  the  proper  and  exclusive  sphere  of  another,  that 
the  former  may  sit  in  judgment  upon  the  validity  of  the  determinations 
of  the  latter. 

By  some  philosophers,  Eeason,  the  simple  faculty  of  implied  know- 
ledge, has  been  actually  deitied  as  '  God  in  us.'  Hence,  all  the  other 
faculties  have  been  arrayed  at  the  bar  of  this  divinity,  and  having  been 
*  weighed  in  the  balances '  there,  have,  of  course,  *  been  found  wanting.' 
All  our  world-knowledge  and  necessary  ideas  have  been  found  to  be 
nothing  but  *  unavoidable  illusion  which  inheres  in  Reason  itself 

Hence,  this  same  Reason  has  been  compelled,  through  its  direct  and 
immediate  d,  priori  insight,  to  determine  what  realities  do,  or  do  not, 
exist. 

From  the  multitudinous  self-contradictory  and  absurd  responses,  which 
have  been  wrung  from  her  under  such  crucifixions,  she  could  justly  be 
convicted  of  intellectual  aberration.  At  one  time  she  has  been  made 
to  afBrm  absolutely  the  existence  of  two  unknown  and  unknowable 
'  noumena '  as  the  exclusive  principles  of  all  things ;  at  another  that 
matter  alone  exists ;  then  that  *  the  I  myself  I '  only  has  being  ;  again, 
that  the  Infinite  and  Absolute  is  the  sole  principle  of  all  things  ;  and, 
finally,  that  no  substances  of  any  kind  exist,  that  thought  only  is  real, 
and  that  time  and  space  are  nothing  but  special  forms  of  thought     All 


ISO  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

these  responses  are  given  forth  as  veritable  revelations  of  absolute  truth. 
Nothing  is,  or  can  be,  more  utterly  absurd  and  lawless  than  Eeason,  or  any 
other  faculty,  when  forced  out  of  its  proper  sphere  and  compelled  to  act 
there.  When  we  refuse,  in  the  construction  of  our  world-systems,  to 
accept  as  veritable  truths  of  science  all  the  real  elements  furnished  by  all 
the  faculties  of  original  intuition,  and  with  absolute  integrity,  to  incor- 
porate into  our  building  the  materials  thus  furnished,  and  as  furnished, 
we  shall,  and  must,  lawlessly  construct  nothing  but  logical  fictions  which 
scientific  scrutiny  will  not  fail  to  break  to  pieces. 

3.  We  are  now  fully  prepared  to  designate  all  the  forms  of  real  know- 
ledge which  can  have  being  and  place  in  the  human  mind.  All  must 
consist  of  what  is  perceived,  of  what  is  implied  by  what  is  perceived,  and 
finally  of  what  is  combined  and  logically  deduced  from  what  is  perceived, 
and  from  what  is  implied  by  the  perceived.  Here,  undeniably,  is  the 
exclusive  sphere,  the  extent  and  limits,  of  true  science.  If  any  of  the 
original  intuitions,  whether  empirical  or  h  priori,  are  omitted,  or  any 
elements  introduced  not  given  by  such  intuition,  we  shall,  with  inevitable 
certainty,  rear  up  structures  of  false  science. 

4.  We  have  now  an  infallible  criterion  by  which  we  can,  with  abso- 
lute certainty,  discriminate  between  real  and  unreal  forms  of  affirmed 
b,  priori  knowledge.  The  objects  of  b,  priori  knowledge  in  all  its  forms 
lie  wholly  out  of,  and  beyond,  the  sphere  of  perception  and  of  knowledge 
il  joosterioii.  An  object,  or  reality,  is  affirmed  to  exist,  a  reality  affirmed 
to  be  the  object  of  knowledge  d,  priori  If  a  valid  knowledge  in  this 
form  of  that  object  does  exist,  we  shall  be  able  to  designate  some  object 
of  actual  perception,  an  object  the  existence  of  which  necessarily  implies 
the  existence  of  the  reality  referred  to.  If  no  such  perceived  object  can 
be  designated,  we  may  know  with  absolute  certainty  that  the  form  of 
affirmed  d,  priori  knowledge  before  us  is  an  illusion. 

A  priori  knowledge,  when  its  validity  is  not  necessarily  implied  uy 
some  known  form  of  knowledge  h  posteriori,  does  not  and  cannot  exist. 
An  individual  affirms  the  existence  in  time  and  space  of  a  certain  reality 
which  is  not  an  object  of  perception  external  or  internal,  and  affirms  that 
reality  to  be  the  object  of  h  priori  knowledge  If  he  can  designate  no 
object  of  perception  whose  existence  necessarily  implies  that  of  the  reality 
affirmed  to  exist,  we  may  affirm  with  absolute  assurance  that  a  fiction  of 
a  bewildered  brain  is  obtruded  upon  us  as  a  necessary  truth  of  scienca 
.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  this  individual  does  designate  a  known  form  of 
h  posterioii  knowledge,  a  form  the  validity  of  which  necessarily  implies 
that  of  the  form  of  h  priori  knowledge  presented,  we  violate  all  the 
principles  of  true  science  if  we  do  not  admit  the  existence  of  the  reality 
under  consideration.  Any  form  of  affirmed  d,  priori  knowledge,  the 
validity  of  which  is  not  implied  by  some  known  form  of  real  knowledge 


KNOWLEDGE  A  PRIORI  AND  A  POSTERIORI.  151 

h  posteriori,  is  undeniably  an  illusion.  The  criterion  under  considera- 
tion has  equal  validity  in  determining  the  claims  of  all  forms  of  judgment 
affirmed  to  possess  d,  priori  certainty.  In  all  such  judgments  the  reality 
of  the  object  represented  by  the  subject  of  such  judgment  implies  of 
necessity  that  of  the  object  represented  by  the  predicate  of  the  same  judg- 
ment. In  such  judgments,  for  example,  as  Body  implies  space,  Succession, 
time,  and  Events,  a  cause,  the  existence  of  the  object  represented  by  the 
subject,  in  every  instance,  implies  absolutely  that  of  the  object  repre- 
sented by  the  predicate.  Such  judgments  have  h  priori  certainty,  and 
may  be  rightfully  employed  as  principles  of  science.  But  whenever  such 
relations  between  the  subject  and  predicate  do  not  obtain,  and  yet  the 
judgments  presented  are  set  forth  as  having  h  priori,  or  self-evident 
certainty,  we  may  know  absolutely  that  mere  lawless  assumptions  are 
being  imposed  upon  us  as  principles  or  axioms  in  science.  An  individual, 
for  example,  lays  down  the  proposition,  as  a  principle  in  science,  that  but 
one  substance  or  principle  of  all  things  does  exist.  We  ask  him  to  verify 
his  proposition  by  proof.  He  not  only  refuses  compliance  with  our  re- 
quest, but  denies  our  right  to  demand  proof,  claiming  for  his  judgment 
self-evident,  or  k  piori,  validity.  Where  is  the  ground  for  such  a 
claim?  Where  is  the  necessary  connection  between  the  subject  and 
predicate  in  such  judgment  1  If  an  individual  should  affirm  that  two 
or  three  such  substances  do  exist,  he  would,  undeniably,  have  just  as 
clear  a  right  to  claim  for  his  proposition  d.  piiori  certainty,  as  the  in- 
dividual before  us  has  for  his.  Philosophers  should  be  held  to  the  strictest 
account  when  they  require  our  assent  to  judgments,  or  propositions,  which 
they  urge  upon  us  as  self-evident,  or  it,  priori,  principles  of  science. 

5.  We  are  also  furnished,  in  the  above  discriminations  and  expositions, 
with  an  absolutely  valid  criterion  by  which  we  can  discriminate,  with 
perfect  certainty,  between  all  forms  of  valid  and  invalid  claims  of  A  priori 
i/iisight  An  individual  claims,  for  example,  that  in  the  presence  of  all 
perceived  substances,  he  is  able,  by  Reason,  to  apprehend  the  realities, 
not  directly  perceived,  but  necessarily  implied  by  what  is  perceived.  On 
the  actual  perception  of  body,  succession,  phenomena,  and  events,  for 
example,  he  does  apprehend,  as  real,  space,  time,  substances,  and  causes, 
and  affirms  himself  to  be  actually  possessed  of  such  a  power  of  b.  priori' 
insight.  We  should  give  the  lie  to  all  the  fundamental  facts  of  our  own 
Consciousness,  if  we  should  deny  to  this  individual  the  actual  possession 
of  b,  priori  insight  in  the  form  claimed.  An  individual,  on  the  other 
hand,  affirms,  that  having  '  put  himself  into  a  state  of  not-knowing,' 
after  having  '  assumed  all  existing  forms  of  knowledge  to  be  uncertain,' 
and  ignoring  wholly  all  facts  and  objects  of  external  and  internal  percep- 
tion, he  can,  through  b,  priori  insight,  look  olf  into  infinite  space  and 
duration,  and  determine,  with  absolute  certainty,  what  reality  or  realities 


T52  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

do,  and  do  not  exist,  and  tlien  what  are  their  relations,  and  from  the 
elements  of  knowledge  thus  obtained,  that  he  can  construct  a  valid 
system  of  universal  being  and  its  lawa  We  should  dementate  ourselves, 
if  we  should  give  the  remotest  credit  to  the  afi&rmed  fact,  or  validity  of 
such  insight.  The  individual  who  claims  to  know  through  such  insight 
what  realities  do  and  do  not  exist  in  infinite  space  and  time  does,  in  fact, 
claim  the  possession  of  absolute  omniscience.  IS^one  but  absolute  omnis- 
(iience  can  determine,  by  such  insight,  what  are  their  relations  and 
laws. 

We,  as  human  beings,  have  our  fixed  conditions,  and  privileges  of 
knowledge,  and  these,  when  rigidly  adhered  to,  and  rightly  used,  are 
abundantly  adequate  to  all  needful  purposes  of  science  and  of  life.  When 
perverted  and  disregarded,  '  the  light  that  is  in  us  becomes  darkness,' 
and  the  Intelligence  itself,  under  will-compulsion,  lands  us  in  the  abyss 
of  error.  Each  faculty  of  the  Intelligence  has  a  fixed  and  readily  deter- 
minable sphere  of  activity.  We  can,  if  we  will,  determine  the  number  of 
these  faculties,  the  peculiar  and  special  sphere  of  each,  its  authority 
within  its  own  sphere,  and  the  mutual  relations  and  dependence  of  these 
faculties  one  in  respect  to  each  and  all  of  the  others.  When  scientific 
inquiry  is  conducted  according  to  the  fixed  laws  of  the  Intelligence,  when 
each  faculty,  with  the  facts  which  it  really  furnishes,  is  duly  respected, 
and  no  one  faculty  is  forced  out  of  its  own  proper  sphere,  our  whole  line 
of  induction  and  deduction  will  be  under  the  eternal  sunlight  of  truth. 
But  if  we  adopt  assumptions  instead  of  valid  principles,  and  adduce 
'  imaginary  substrata '  instead  of  facts  of  real  intuition,  our  inquiries 
will  conduct  us  into  the  midnight  of  error. 

6.  We  are  also  prepared,  in  view  of  our  previous  expositions,  to  deter- 
mine fully,  and  with  perfect  certainty,  the  nature  and  spheres  and  mutual 
relations  to  each  other  of  the  a  priori,  or  pure,  and  of  the  a  posteriori,  or 
mixed,  sciences.  The  distinction  under  consideration  lies  here.  All  the 
real  sciences  are  wholly  constituted  of  principles  and  facts,  and  deduc- 
tions from  said  principles  and  facts.  In  the  h  priori,  or  pure  sciences, 
all  the  principles  (axioms  and  postulates)  and  facts  are  furnished  exclu- 
sively through  d>  piiori  insight.  In  the  A  posteriori,  or  mixed  sciences, 
Ihe  principles  are  d,  priori,  or  self-evident  judgments,  while  the  facts  are 
objects  of  perception,  that  is,  of  knowledge  it  posteriori.  In  the  former 
class  of  sciences,  not  only  the  principles,  but  equally  the  facts,  are  the 
objects  of  necessary  knowledge.  In  other  words,  the  principles  and  facts 
will,  all  alike,  be  given  with  the  absolute  knowledge,  that  they  must  be 
as  we  apprehend  them  to  be.  This  we  all  know  to  be  true  of  the  prin- 
ciples in  all  such  sciences,  principles  such  as  these,  Things  equal  to  the 
sane  thing  are  equal  to  one  another,  and  The  whole  is  greater  than  any 
one  of  its  parts.    In  all  such  judgments,  the  gubjeut  implies  the  predicates 


KNOWLEDGE  A  PRIORI  AND  A  POSTERIORI.  153 

The  same  holds  equally  of  the  facts  in  such  sciences.  Said  facts  are 
given  by  defiuition,  which  has  in  all  cases  d,  p'iori,  or  necessary,  validity. 
Space  implies  the  existence  in  itself  of  points  and  figures,  such  as  straight 
lines,  triangles,  squares,  circles,  and  ellipses.  In  the  elucidation  of  the 
nature,  properties,  and  relations  of  such  points  and  figures,  we  have  the 
science  of  numbers  and  quantity,  as  the  mathematics.  In  these  sciences, 
the  principles,  definitions,  facts,  and  deductions,  all  in  common,  have 
h  priori,  or  necessary  validity.  They  are  given  as  valid  with  the  utter 
impossibility  of  conceiving  of  their  invalidity.  In  the  ^posteriori,  or  mixed 
sciences,  the  principles,  all  in  common,  have  b,  priori,  or  necessary  validity, 
while  the  facts,  we  repeat,  are  the  objects  of  knowledge  b,  posteriori,  objects 
known  to  be  real,  but  with  the  possibility  of  our  conceiving  of  their  non- 
reality.  The  pure,  or  d,  priori  sciences,  pertain  to  number  and  quantity 
which  exist  as  properties  of  space  and  time  themselves.  The  h  posteriori, 
or  mixed  sciences,  pertain  to  phenomena,  and  events,  and  substances,  and 
causes,  existing  in  time  and  space.  ^Nothing  can  be  more  clear  and  dis- 
tinct, than  what  obtains  relatively  to  the  spheres  and  nature  of  these  two 
classes  of  sciences. 

All  Q0E8T10N8  Pertaining  to  Ontology  Belong  Exclusively  to  thb 

k   POSTERIORI,    OR   MiXED    SoiENCES. 

We  can  now  determine  with  demonstrative  certainty  to  what  sphere, 
that  of  the  d  posteriori,  or  d  priori,  sciences,  all  questions  of  Ontology, 
of  Being,  its  laws  and  relations,  and  of  substances  and  causes,  proximate 
and  ultimate,  exclusively  belong.  They  pertain,  we  answer,  wholly  and 
exclusively,  not  to  the  i  pi'iori,  or  pure,  but  to  the  d  posteriori,  or  mixed 
sciences.  The  reason  is  most  obvious.  Whatever  is  given  as  existing  in 
time  and  space  is,  in  fact,  given  exclusively  as  the  object  of  contingent, 
or  conditionally  implied  knowledge.  We  can  conceive  of  space  and  time 
as  occupied  by,  or  as  utterly  void  of,  phenomena  and  events,  substances 
and  causes.  As  each  state  aud  relation  is  equally  conceivable,  and,  there- 
fore, possible  in  itself,  we  have  no  grounds  whatever  for  an  d  priori 
determination  of  the  question  whether  any,  and  much  less  what 
particular  and  specific  causes,  substances,  phenomena,  and  events  do 
exist  and  occur  in  time  and  space.  One  philosopher  sets  forth,  as  an 
d  priori  principle  in  science,  the  dogma  that  but  one  substance  or  prin- 
ciple of  all  things  does  exist.  Another  philosopher  affirms,  a.s  a  similar 
principle,  the  existence  of  two  entities,  noumena,  as  the  principle  of  all 
things.  How  can  we  determine  which  is  right,  and  which  wrong,  or 
whether  both  are  not  mistaken  ?  As  it  is  equally  conceivable,  and  there- 
fore possible  in  itself,  that  either  one,  as  that  the  other,  may  be  right 
and  his  antagonist  wrong,  or  that  both  may  be  in  error,  we  have,  and 
can  have  no  d  priori  grounds  for  the  determination  of  any  such  question. 


1 54  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

One  philosopher  aflBirms  knowledge  to  be  possible  and  actual  but  in  its 
subjective  form  ;  another,  that  it  is  possible  and  actual  but  in  its  objective 
form ;  another  still,  that  no  valid  knowledge,  in  either  form,  is  possible  ; 
and  a  fourth,  that  it  is  both  possible  and  actual  in  both  forms.  There  is 
nothing  self-coutradictory  in  either  hypothesis.  Either  therefore  may  be 
true,  and  all  the  others  false.  What  ground  have  we,  or  can  we  have, 
then,  for  an  A  priori  determination  of  the  question  which  is,  and  which 
is  not  true  ?  None  whatever.  The  question,  which  is,  and  which  is  not 
true,  is  a  simple  question  of  fact — a  question  to  be  resolved  exclusively, 
not  by  d  priori,  but  by  i  posteriori  insight,  that  is,  by  an  appeal  to  facts 
of  Consciousness.  No  truth  can  be  more  demonstrably  evident  than 
this,  that  all  questions  of  Ontology,  questions  pertaining  to  Being  and  its 
laws,  and  substances,  and  causes,  proximate  and  ultimate,  come  exclusively 
within  the  sphere,  not  of  the  i  priori,  or  pure,  but  of  the  i  posteriori,  or 
mixed  sciences.  In  all  our  inquiries  throughout  the  wide  domain  of 
ontological  science,  we  are  absolutely  confined  to  facts  of  actual  intuition, 
to  substances  and  causes  implied  by  such  facts,  and  to  the  logical  deduc- 
tions which  such  facts,  substances,  and  causes  yield. 

8.  We  can,  also,  determine  with  equal  absoluteness  what  is  the  true, 
and  only  true,  method  of  induction  and  deduction  in  the  domain  of 
ontological  science.  Two,  and  only  two,  methods  are  known  to  science, 
the  d  priori  and  the  h  posteriori  or  inductive.  In  the  pure  sciences,  the 
former,  and  in  the  mixed  the  latter,  exclusively  obtains.  In  the  former 
all  principles  and  facts  are  given  as  necessarily  valid  and  real.  In  the 
latter  we  have  our  necessary  principles,  while  our  facts  are  given  ex- 
clusively through  perception  or  intuitive  insight.  Suppose  now  that  the 
h  priori  method,  the  method  which  has  place  in  the  pure  sciences  only,  is 
carried  over  into  the  universe  of  facts  and  objects  of  contingent  ideas, 
and  an  attempt  is  made  through  such  method  to  resolve  all  questions  of 
facts  pertaining  to  Being  and  its  laws.  As  a  matter  of  course  and 
necessity,  we  shall  substitute  lawless  assumptions  in  the  place  of  vali'^ 
h,  priori  principles,  and  imaginary  facts  and  substrata  in  the  place  of 
intuitively  known  realities  and  their  attributes. 

All  our  deductions,  consequently,  will  have  no  more  validity  for  real 
existences  and  their  laws  than  the  wildest  fables  possess  for  historic 
verities.  The  report  of  an  individual  of  his  personal  knowledge  in  regard 
to  the  visibilities  of  London  or  Paris,  an  individual  who  has  merely 
passed  through  its  streets  with  his  eyes  and  ears  and  senses  so  closed  that 
he  could  see  and  hear  and  feel  nothing,  would  be  just  as  reliable  as  are 
the  d  priori  visions  of  the  greatest  philosopher  in  regard  to  facts  of 
universal  being  and  its  laws.  Conceive  such  a  philosopher  located  in 
empty  space,  with  an  absolute  oblivion  of  mind  and  matter,  time  and 
space.     Bequire  him,  under  these  conditions  and  circumstances,  to  detei- 


KNOWLEDGE  A  PRIORI  AND  A  POSTERIORI.  155 

mine  wholly  by  b,  priori  insight  what  reality  or  realities  do,  or  do  not, 
exist,  and  what  are  their  nature,  relations,  and  laws.  This,  undeniably, 
is  a  far  more  favourable  condition  for  such  insight  than  a  location  amid 
the  *  unavoidable  illusions '  and  '  prejudices '  and  deceptive  appearances 
of  perception.  All  such  illusions  and  prejudices  and  appearances  can  do 
nothing  but  darken  d,  priori  insight  of  absolute  truth,  if  the  power  of 
direct  vision  of  such  truth  exists  in  the  mind.  The  Yogee,  with  the 
Transcendental  Philosopher,  does  all  he  can,  *  when  he  begins  to  philo- 
sophize,' to  put  himself  into  the  very  state  above  described.  *  He  puts 
himself  into  a  state  of  not-knowing,'  and  *  assumes  all  existing  forms  of 
knowledge  to  be  uncertain,'  and  '  by  an  absolute  and  scientific  scepticism 
to  which  he  voluntarily  determines  himself  for  the  purpose  of  future 
certainty,'  '  compels  himself  to  treat  such  knowledge  as  nothing  but  a 
prejudice.'  It  takes  a  world  of  trouble  to  effect  such  *  a  purification  of 
the  mind '  as  this,  and  while  by  this  higher  d,  priori  insight  the  vision  of 
the  Absolute  is  being  received,  these  *  unavoidable  illusions '  will  return 
and  force  themselves  upon  the  attention,  and  thus  disturb  '  pious  medi- 
tation '  and  cloud  the  desired  vision  of  real  being  and  its  laws.  But  let 
this  state  of  not-knowing  *  be  perfected  by  an  absolute  oblivion  of  these 
otherwise  unavoidable  illusions ' — an  utter  oblivion  of  matter  and  spirit, 
time  and  space.  Nothing  would  then  be  left  to  disturb  *  pious  medita- 
tion,' or  cloud  the  vision  of  '  the  faculty  of  intellectual  intuition.'  Here, 
if  by  any  possibility  the  end  can  be  accomplished  by  h  prioi'i  insight, 
and  the  a  priori  method  of  philosophizing  in  the  domain  of  Ontology,  we 
should  obtain  an  absolutely  verified  system  of  universal  being  and  ita 
laws. 

We  lay  this  down  as  a  proposition  which  no  candid  thinker  who  has 
comprehended  the  above  facts  and  arguments  will  question,  that  every 
system  of  Ontology — a  system  developed  and  constructed  in  conformity 
with  the  principles  of  the  h  priori  method  of  philosophizing — stands 
revealed  as  a  demonstrated  fiction  of  false  science.  The  era  has  arrived 
when,  but  in  the  sphere  of  pure  science,  the  mathematics,  the  d,  priori 
method  of  philosophizing  in  the  domain  of  real  substances  and  causes, 
and  of  universal  being  and  its  laws,  should  be  left  and  for  ever  remain 
among  the  '  fossilized  precepts '  or  illusions  of  bygone  eras. 

We  have  but  one  exclusive  method  left  us  for  the  determination  and 
solution  of  all  questions  and  problems  pertaining  to  substances  and  causes, 
Being  and  its  relations  and  laws,  the  d,  posteriori  or  inductive  method.  In 
conducting  our  inquiries,  there  must  be,  in  the  light  of  undeniably  valid 
criteria,  a  careful  discrimination  between  real  principles  of  science  and 
assumptions,  and  between  mere  opinions,  beliefs,  and  conjectures,  and 
forms  of  valid  knowledge,  and  from  such  principles  and  knowledges  oui 
system  of  Being  and  its  laws  must,  with  rigid  integrity,  be  deduced. 


IS6  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Then,  and  then  only,  Tvill  such  systems  lay  veritable  claims  to  our  regard 
as  *  knowledge  systematized.'  Hitherto  philosophic  inquiry  has  for  the 
most  part  been  conducted  without  any  proper  determination,  of  the  dis- 
tinctive characteristics  and  spheres  of  the  h  priori  and  inductive  methods 
in  science,  without  any  proper  determination  of  the  question  which  method 
has  exclusive  place  and  authority  in  the  domain  of  ontological  inquiry, 
and  without  a  scientific  determination  of  the  criteria  by  which  principles 
in  science  are  distinguished  from  assumptions,  and  forms  of  real  valid 
knowledge  from  mere  opinions,  beliefs,  and  conjectures  pertaining  to  facts 
and  realities  in  the  universe  within  and  around  us. 

If  the  wisest  philosophers  of  the  age  were  required  to  give  specific 
information  on  all  these  topics  of  fundamental  interest,  we  venture  the 
opinion  that  most  of  them  would  be  at  a  loss  to  furnish  it.  If  all 
philosophic  inquiry  into  Being  and  its  laws  were  suspended  until  all  the 
questions  and  problems  above  suggested  were  fully  solved,  and  if  from 
that  time  onward  all  forms  of  ontological  induction  and  deduction  should 
be  conducted  in  strict  accordance  with  the  method  and  principles  thus 
developed  and  verified,  the  fog  and  miasma  of  false  science  would  soon 
pass  away,  and  humanity  would  move  on  in  the  bright  sunlight  of  real 
science. 

9.  Enough  has  already  been  said,  perhaps,  in  regard  to  the  claims  set 
up  by  certain  philosophers,  that  they  possess  a  faculty  of  special  *  intel- 
lectual intuition,'  or  b,  priori  insight,  by  which  they  are  able,  independ- 
ently of  facts  of  h  posteriori  knowledge,  to  furnish  us  with  absolute 
information  pertaining  to  universal  being  and  its  laws.  As  we  shall 
hereafter,  as  we  have  so  frequently  met  in  the  past,  meet  with  this 
profession,  and  encounter  imposing  systems  reared  up  under  its  affirmed 
guidance,  we  shall  be  pardoned  for  a  special  consideration  of  this  pro- 
fession in  this  connection.  We  are  now  able  to  demonstrate  this  profes- 
sion, with  all  its  b,piiori  systems  of  ontology,  to  be  nothing  but  the  veriest 
and  most  absurd  illusion  that  has  ever  appeared  in  the  sphere  of  scientific 
thought.  The  well-known  characteristics  of  a  priori  knowledge,  in  all  its 
forms,  are  absolute  universality  and  necessity.  In  other  words,  the  objects 
of  such  knowledge  are  conceived  of  as  existing  with  the  utter  impos- 
sibility of  even  conceiving  of  them  as  not  existing.  If  these  philosophers 
are  really  possessed  of  this  h  priori  insight,  the  forms  of  knowledge  fur- 
nished through  it  will  have  the  two  fixed  characteristics  under  considera- 
tion. So  of  the  systems  of  Ontology  thus  furnished.  Such  systems,  in 
all  their  principles,  facts,  and  deductions,  will  have  all  the  forms  and 
degrees  of  absolute  and  necessary  certainty  that  the  pure  sciences  have. 

Now  there  is  not  a  solitary  form  of  cognition,  a  form  which  has  ever 
been  furnished  by  this  insight,  which  has  any  such  characteristics  what- 
evei.     Uot  one  principle,  fact,  or  deduction  thus  furnished  has  even  the 


KNOWLEDGE  A  PRIORI  AND  A  POSTERIORI.  157 

appearance  of  universal  and  necessary  certainty.  On  the  other  hand,  all 
the  multitudinous  forms  of  Being  thus  affirmed,  as  objects  of  absolute 
knowledge,  have,  in  themselves,  the  fixed  characteristics  of  objects  of 
contingent  knowledge,  and  the  existence  of  every  such  object  is  abso- 
lutely incompatible  with  that  of  every  other.  Take,  as  an  example,  this 
affirmed  b,  priori,  or  necessary,  principle  of  science,  the  principle  affirmed 
to  be  such  by  Materialism  and  Idealism  in  all  their  forms,  to  wit,  '  that 
but  one  substance  or  principle  of  all  things  does  exist.'  If  this  is,  as  it 
is  affirmed  to  be,  a  real  h,  priori  principle,  it  would  be  just  as  absolutely 
impossible  for  us  to  conceive  of  its  non-validity,  as  it  is  to  conceive  of 
the  non-validity  of  the  principle,  *  Things  equal  to  the  same  things  are 
equal  to  one  another.'  Who  does  not  perceive  that  the  former  has  none 
of  the  essential  characteristics  of  the  latter  1  While  we  do,  and  cannot 
but  know,  that  the  latter  is,  and  must  be,  true,  without  the  possession  of 
absolute  omniscience,  we  cannot'  determine  whether  the  former  is^  or  is 
not,  true,  much  less  whether  it  mtist  be  true.  . 

In  the   sphere  of  Materialism  we  have  this   absolute  revelation  of 

*  intellectual  intuition,'  or  d,  priori  insight,  that  matter  is  the  only  existing 
substance.  In  the  sphere  of  Idealism  we  have,  as  the  revelation  of 
absolute  truth,  the  dogma  that  spirit,  or  its  operations  alone,  has  being,  a 
revelation  given  forth  by  this  same  '  faculty  of  intellectual  intuition,'  or 
A  priori  insight.     In  one  of  these  cases,  at  least,  this  infallible  organ  of 

•  intellectual  intuition,*  or  h  priori  knowledge,  must  have  erred  funda- 
mentally. The  faculty  of  real  ii  priori  insight,  however,  can,  by  no 
possibility,  err  in  any  case.  All  its  revelations  are  absolute,  and  cannot 
even  be  conceived  to  be  untrue. 

If  we  take  either  of  these  propositions  by  itself,  we  shall  find  that  it 
has  not  a  single  characteristic  of  intuitive,  or  necessary  certainty.  Nor, 
without  the  possession  of  omniscience,  or  a  revelation  from  a  being 
really  and  truly  omniscient,  could  we  know  the  proposition  to  be  true, 
even  were  it  true. 

So  we  may  take  up,  one  by  one,  all  the  particular  revelations  of  this 
faculty,  and  all  the  multitudinous,  CiTTTflicting,  and  contradictory  systems 
of  universal  being  and  its  laws,  systems  constructed  from  elements  fur- 
nished by  this  faculty,  and  demonstrate  that  not  one  of  them  presents  a 
solitary  element  or  form  of  intuition,  or  h  priori  knowledge.  Not  one  of 
these  philosophers  can  give  us  any  more  proof,  or  evidence,  that  he  is,  in 
truth,  possessed  of  any  such  faculty,  than  he  can  that  he  is  really  and 
truly  possessed  of  the  attribute  of  absolute  omniscience.  A  claim  set 
up  to  the  actual  possession  of  such  an  attribute  would  be  no  more  pre- 
posterous and  absurd,  than  is  the  claim  of  an  actual  possession  of  such 
faculty.  No  human  being  can  have  any  more  real  and  valid  b,  priori 
knowledge  of  the  substances  and  caiises,  and  forms  and  laws  of  Being, 


IS8  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

existing  and  acting  in  time  and  space,  than  he  can,  by  mere  h  priori 
insight,  determine  the  exact  quantity  of  water  which  has  fallen  in  any 
given  shower  of  rain,  or  the  exact  dimensions  and  weight  of  the  Earth, 
or  of  Jupiter.  Whenever  we  shall  meet,  in  our  subsequent  inquiries, 
with  a  philosopher  claiming  such  insight,  and  with  world-systems  con- 
structed by  means  of  such  affirmed  insight,  science  absolutely  demands 
that  we  shall  regard  the  man  as  under  a  bewildering  form  of  philosophic 
hallucination,  and  his  system  as  constructed  of  materials  as  insubstantial 
as  'airy  nothing.' 

There  are  still  other  equally  fundamental  views  which  should  be  taken 
in  regard  to  this  claim  of  a  power  of  d,  priori  insight  relatively  to  Being 
and  its  laws.  By  this  insight  a  direct  and  immediate  vision  is  had,  it  is 
affirmed,  of  the  inner  nature  and  principles  of  substances  and  causes.  If 
this  vision  of  the  interior  of  such  realities  is  had  through  the  attributes  of 
substances  and  causes,  we  have  nothing  but  forms  of  ordinary  vision,  and 
no  d,  prim  knowledge  at  all.  The  character  of  the  knowledge  secured 
is  wholly  contingent,  and  not  necessary,  that  is,  h  priori,  in  any  sense. 
If  these  oljjects  are  perceived  without,  and  not  through,  their  attributes, 
then  no  knowledge  of  any  kind,  knowledge  ii  prion  or  a  posterimi,  is 
obtained.  To  know  realities  without  knowing  their  attributes  is  not  to 
know  anything  about  them. 

By  no  possibility  can  the  Knowledge  affirmed  be  obtained  of  any  such 
Substances  or  Causes. 

There  is  a  still  greater  absurdity  and  hallucination  connected  with  this 
profession.  By  this  insight  certain  philosophers  profess  to  know,  not 
only  that  certain  perceived  realities  do  exist,  but  that  others  not  perceived 
do  not  exist.  We  have  a  direct  perception,  we  will  suppose,  of  some 
reality.  That  perception  is  valid  for  the  existence  of  the  object,  and  for 
nothing  more.  In  regard  to  the  question  whether  some  other,  and  not 
incompatible  object  does,  or  does  not  exist,  this  perception  has  no  validity 
whatever.  This  principle  does,  and  must  apply  to  d,  priori,  as  well  as  to 
every  other  form  of  insight.  The  insight  can,  say  what  we  will,  have 
validity  but  for  what  is  actually  seen.  As  against  the  existence  of  any 
other  not  incompatible  reality,  such  vision  can  have  no  validity  whatever. 
Now  these  philosophers  profess  to  obtain,  in  all  their  d,  priori  visions,  not 
only  a  knowledge  that  what  they  see  does  exist,  but  that  this  is  the  sum 
of  all  existence,  and  that  nothing  else  does,  or  can,  have  being.  The 
disciples  of  Kanada  and  Compte,  by  b,  priori  insight,  perceive  matter  not 
only  to  be  real,  but  to  be  the  only  existing  reality.  The  disciples  of  Kapila 
and  Kant,  by  the  same  insight,  perceive  and  affirm  the  existence  of  two 
unknown  entities,  noumena,  as  the  sole  existences  and  principles  of  all 
things.     The   disciples   of  the  Buddha  and  Transcendental  Subjective 


KNOWLEDGE  A  PRIORI  AND  A  POSTERIORI.  159 

Idealistic  school,  perceive  absolutely  by  the  same  insight,  that  the  finite, 
*  I  myself  I,'  and  that  alone  has  real  being.  Those  of  the  Vedanta  and 
Pantheistic  schools  of  all  ages  perceive  absolutely,  and  by  means  of  the 
same  identical  insight,  that  Brahm,  or  the  Absolute,  alone  exists,  and 
exists  as  the  exclusive  principle  of  all  things.  Finally,  the  Pure  Idealists 
of  the  Buddha  and  Transcendental  schools  perceive,  if  possible,  with  still 
greater  absoluteness,  that  thought  is,  and  that  nothing  else  is  real.  Each 
school  obtains  an  ii  priori  revelation  of  absolute  truth,  that  a  specific  form 
of  being  is  real,  and  that  nothing  else  does,  or  can  exist.  Who  does  not 
perceive,  at  once,  that  the  validity  of  such  insight  is  an  utter  nullity,  and 
that  the  professed  power  of  perceiving  any  object,  as  not  only  being  a 
reality  in  itself,  but  as  being  the  only  form  of  real  existence,  is  the  grossest 
conceivable  absurdity  ? 

When  we  perceive  any  substance,  or  cause,  or  form  of  being  to  be  real, 
unless  we  can  perceive,  at  the  same  time,  that  it  so  occupies  infinite  space 
as  to  render  the  existence  of  any  other  object  an  absolute  impossibility, 
our  perception  that  said  object  is  a  reality  presents  not  the  remotest 
degree  of  even  probable  evidence  that  nothing  else  is  real.  The  positive 
and  negative  form  in  which  this  affirmed  d  priori  insight  always  acts 
renders  demonstrably  evident  the  fact,  that  the  idea  of  the  existence  of 
such  a  faculty  is  one  of  the  wildest  conceivable  forms  of  scientific  hallu- 
cination. 

Taking  as  valid  the  result  of  the  testimony  of  all  these  schools  in  its 
only  admissible,  that  is,  in  its  positive  forms,  what  do  we  obtain  1  We 
obtain,  we  reply,  an  absolute  proof  of  the  validity  of  the  hypothesis  which 
they  all,  in  common,  deny,  to  wit,  the  reality  of  matter  and  spirit,  and 
of  time  and  space.  All  these  are  absolutely  affirmed  realities  in  these 
several  schools,  one  in  one  school,  and  another  in  another,  and  in  all  are 
thus  affirmed  by  the  same  form  of  insight.  In  one  school  spirit,  and  in 
another  matter,  is  given  as  the  object  of  absolute  knowledge,  and  no  phi- 
losopher can  show  why  the  evidence  presented  is  not  just  as  valid  in  one 
case,  as  in  the  other.  We  are  necessitated  to  affirm  either  that  these 
philosophers  have  no  such  insight  as  they  assume  themselves  possessed 
of,  or  that  we  have  both  an  d,  priori  and  d  posteriori  knowledge  of  space 
and  time,  matter  and  spirit,  as  realities  in  themselves. 


SECTION  IV. 

MTSTERY  AND  ABSURDITY  DEFINED  AND  DISTINGUISHED. 

In  the  science  of  Natural  Theology,  we  have  very  carefully  defined,  and 
distinguished  from  each  other,  the  ideas  represented  by  these  two  terms. 
The  fundamental  bearing   of  these    discriminations    upon   our    future 


t6o  a  critical  history  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

inquiries  will  be  our  apology  for  introducing  the  same  subject  in  the 
present  connection.  What,  then,  do  we  mean  by  these  terms,  and  wherein 
do  they  differ  the  one  from  the  other  1 

An  absurdity  involves  a  contradiction,  and  appears  in  two  forms — 
affirming  that  the  same  thing  is,  at  the  same  time,  true  and  not  true  of 
the  same  object,  or  affirming  what  is  palpably  contrary  to,  or  incom- 
patible with,  an  absolutely  known  truth.  The  nature  of  the  absurd  in 
the  first  form  designated  is  so  obvious,  that  but  a  single  example  in  illus- 
tration is  required.  A  philosopher  affirms  that  in  all  cases  of  vision 
the  object  really  perceived  is  not  an  external  form,  but  an  image  on  the 
retina.  He  then  employs  vision  itself  to  prove  the  existence  of  the 
image  in  the  assigned  locality,  the  image  which  is  now  an  exterior  object. 
According  to  the  theory,  the  image  itself  cannot  be  seen,  but  only  an 
image  of  an  image.  There  are  two  absurdities  in  this  argument — proving 
by  an  image  which,  by  hypothesis,  is  not  seen,  that  nothing  but  an 
image  is  ever  seen  at  all,  and  inferring  from  the  assumed  existence  of 
the  image  that  it,  and  not  the  object  of  conscious  vision,  is  seen. 

An  individual  is  affirmed  to  be  blameable  for  not  having  done  what 
is  admitted  to  have  been  impossible  to  him.  We  recognise  ourselves  at 
once  as  in  the  presence  of  an  absurdity  of  the  second  class,  the  possible 
being  absolutely  known  to  be  the  only  conceivable  object  of  moral  obli- 
gation. The  same  form  of  the  absurd  appears,  when  an  argument  or 
objection  is  held  to  be  valid  in  disproof  of  a  given  hypothesis,  when  the 
same  argument  or  objection  holds  in  all  its  force  against  another  hypo- 
thesis known  or  admitted  to  be  true,  A  philosopher  proposes  to  give 
us  real  science  in  the  admitted  and  affirmed  sphere  of  the  unknown  and 
unknowable,, or  *to  demonstrate'  for  us  'a  single  physical  basis  of  life 
underlying  all  the  diversities  of  vital  existence,'  or  that  '  a  unity  of  power 
or  faculty,  a  unity  of  form,  and  a  unity  of  substantial  composition,  does 
pervade  the  whole  living  world,'  and  then  gravely  informs  us  that  '  it  is 
certain  that  we  can  have  no  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  either  matter 
or  spirit.'  In  all  such  cases,  the  absurd  has  reached  its  consummation. 
A  fact,  we  will  suppose,  is  known  to  us  as  an  event  of  actual  occurrence. 
The  reason  or  cause  of  its  occurrence  is,  to  us,  unknown  and  unascertain- 
able.  The  event,  in  such  case,  would  rank  as  a  fact  of  actual  knowledge, 
•while  the  cause  would  be  a  mystery.  It  is  thus  that  the  known  and 
mysterious  everywhere  lie  out  side  by  side  before  us.  If  we  will  admit 
no  fact  to  have  occurred,  and  no  object  to  be  real,  the  occurrence  and 
existence  of  which  involve  a  mystery,  we  shall  for  ever  remain,  in  the 
strictest  sense  of  the  words,  'know-nothings.'  No  fact  or  proposition, 
falling  within  the  proper  sphere  of  the  self-contradictory,  or  absurd,  can 
be  an  object  of  rational  belief,  because  that,  by  no  possibility,  can  such 
an  event  occur,  or  any  such  proposition  be  true.     The  element  of  Mys- 


MYSTERY  AND  ABSURDITY  DEFINED  AND  DISTINGUISHED.   i6i 

tery,  however  deep,  on  the  other  hand,  is  no  proof  whatever  that  a  given 
fact  has  not  occurred,  or  that  a  given  proposition  is  not  true.  Ahiiopt 
no  discrirainatious  can  be  of  greater  importance  in  science  than  thov«e 
just  made  between  the  absurd  and  the  mysterious.  Any  fact,  the 
possible  occurrence  of  which  is  conceivable,  is  a  possible  event,  and  its 
occurrence  may,  on  adequate  evidence,  be  an  object  of  rational  belief, 
and  a  denial  of  its  occurrence  may  be  most  irrational.  Any  form  of 
being,  the  existence  of  which  is  conceivably  possible,  is  a  possible  form 
of  existence ;  and  a  belief  in  it  as  real,  the  fact  of  its  existence  being 
affirmed  by  adequate  evidence,  is  most  rational,  and  disbelief  under  such 
circunistance.s  is  equally  irrational.  Positive  belief  in  the  absurd,  and 
disbelief  in  the  presence  of  valid  evidence,  and  doubt  in  the  presence  of 
real  proof,  are  intellectual  states  equally  credulous  and  irrational,  and 
moral  states  of  the  greatest  criminality. 

Existence  involves  a  Mystery. 

Of  all  forms  of  the  mysterious  none  are,  or  can  be,  greater  then  that 
involved  in  the  idea  of  existence,  that  is,  when  we  ask  the  question,  not 
what  is  real,  but  why  a  given  form  of  being  or  substance  is  real  instead  of 
not  real.  '  We  may  know  absolutely,'  as  we  have  said  in  another  work, 
*  that  a  certain  suljstance  does  as  a  matter  of  fact  exist.  But  when  we 
attempt  to  go  beyond  the  mere  fact  and  to  determine  the  question  why 
the  substance  does  exist  instead  of  not  exist,  we  find  that  we  can  discover 
neither  in  the  fact  referred  to,  nor  in  the  nature  or  relations  of  the  substance 
revealed  as  existing,  any  light  whatever  in  regard  to  such  inquiries.'  Any 
conceivable,  we  repeat,  is  a  possible  form  of  existence,  and  any  one  such 
form  is  just  as  possible  as  any  other.  Belief  in  the  reality  of  any  con- 
ceivable form  of  being,  when  affirmed  as  real  by  adequate  evidence,  is  most 
rational,  and  disbelief  most  irrational.  The  questions  what  realities  do 
exist,  and  why  tliey  exist,  are  questions  totally  distinct  and  separate  the 
one  from  the  other.  The  depth  of  the  mystery  involved  in  the  why  of 
existence  is  no  reason  whatever  for  disbelief  in  the  fact  of  existence. 
The  belief  in  the  reality  of  one  form  of  being  is  no  reason  whatever  for 
disbelief  in  that  of  another  and  not  incompatible  form  of  existence.  As 
the  why  of  existence  is,  in  all  conceivable  forms  of  being,  alike  and  equally 
mysterious,  and  we  are  of  necessity  confined  to  the  mere  and  exclusive 
question,  JVhat  is  real  1  one  form  of  conceivable  existence  is  in  itself  and 
on  d  piioi'i  grounds  just  as  possible  and  probable  as  any  other ;  nor  can 
we  on  such  grounds  determine  at  all  what  substances  and  causes  are  and 
are  not  real. 

The  law  of  rational  belief  and  disbelief,  in  respect  to  being  and  its  laws, 
is  absolute,  an<l  may  be  thus  stated — to  wit,  Wliaiever  conceivable  forms  of 
being  are  manifested  as  real,  and  none  others,  must  be  admitted  as  actual,  that 

11 


i62  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

is,  all  forms  of  being  directly  and  immediately  perceived  to  be  real,  together 
with  all  implied  by  and  logically  deduced  from  what  is  thus  perceived,  all 
these,  and  nothing  more,  must  be  taken  into  account  as  real  in  the  consti- 
tution of  our  theory  of  existence  and  its  laws.  The  conscious  conceivability 
of  any  form  of  existence  demonstrates  it  as  a  possible  form  of  being,  and 
removes  utterly  and  absolutely  all  antecedent  probability  against  its 
reality.  The  f  ict  of  its  consciously  direct  and  immediate  manifestation 
as  a  real  form  of  being  must  be  to  the  mind,  on  scientific  grouuds,  perfect 
proof  of  its  real  existence. 

Bearing  of  these  Conclusions  upon  our  former  Deductions. 
As  we  have  formerly  shown,  and  as  admitted  and  affirmed  in  all  schools 
of  Philosophy,  matter  and  spirit,  and  time  and  space  are  actually  con- 
ceivable and  conceived  forms  of  existence.  Nor,  as  all  admit,  is  the  idea 
of  the  existence  of  any  one  of  them  conceivably  incompatible  with  that 
of  any-  other.  They  all,  then,  stand  demonstrably  revealed  as  possible 
existences  with  no  antecedent  probability  against  their  being,  all  in 
common  and  all  together  actual  existences,  their  united  existence  being 
utterly  undeniable  on  a  priori  grounds.  The  simple  question  for  science, 
then,  is  this,  Are  we  conscious  of  matter  and  spirit  as  objects  of  direct 
and  immediate  perception,  and  of  time  and  space  as  necessary  forms  of 
being  whose  reality  is  implied  by  what  is  consciously  perceived  1  Number- 
less, impenetrable,  and  unsolvable  mysteries  may  hang  about  the  why  of 
their  existence  and  manifestation.  The  fact  of  both  may  be  objects  of 
absolute  knowledge,  and  therefore  real.  If  we  shall  hereafter  meet  with 
philosophers  who  deny  the  fact  that  we  are  conscious  of  a  direct  and 
immediate  perception  of  matter  and  spirit  as  distinct  and  separate  and 
actual  forms  of  being,  and  of  knowing  time  and  space  as  necessary  forms 
of  existence  absolutely  implied  as  real  by  what  we  consciously  perceive, 
we  shall  deny  the  correctness  of  the  psychology  of  such  thinkers,  and 
shall  sustain  that  denial  by  an  appeal  to  the  already  absolutely  pro- 
nounced judgment  of  the  universal  consciousness.  If  these  philosophers 
shall  deny  the  validity  of  such  conscious  forms  of  absolute  knowledge  for 
the  reality  and  character  of  their  objects,  we  shall  deny  the  correctness  of 
the  logic  of  these  thinkers,  and  shall  sustain  that  denial  by  an  appeal  to 
the  already  pronounced  judgment  of  the  same  tribunal  as  before.  The 
undeniable  fact  should  fully  satisfy  every  friend  of  true  science  that  the 
validity  of  our  knowledge  of  each  of  these  realities,  in  common  with 
every  other,  cannot  be  denied  without  an  absolute  impeachment  of  the 
integrity  and  validity  of  the  universal  intelligence  itself  as  a  faculty  of 
knowledge. 


MYSTERY  AND  ABSURDITY  DEFINED  AND  DISTINGUISHED.    163 

The  Emfence  of  a  Power  of  Knowledge  involves  a  Mystery  equ^ly  profomid. 

Knowledge,  as  shown  in  the  General  Introduction,  implies  a  power  and 
an  object  of  knowledge,  and  these  in  such  relations  to  each  other  that  real 
knowledge  arises  hy  virtue  of  the  nature  and  relations  of  the  power  and 
object  referred  to.     If  we  inquire  for  the  reasons  why  such  power  exists, 
why  such  conditions  are  necessary  to  its  action,  and  why  knowledge  does 
arise  when  these  conditions  are  fulfilled,  all  is  an  absolute  mystery  to  us, 
excepting  what  is  implied  in  the  statement  above  given.     We  know,  and 
cannot  but  know,  that  knowledge,  in  any  and  every  form,  does  and  must 
imply  a  power  and  object  of  knowledge,  and  that  whenever  knowledge 
does  arise,  it  must  exist  in  consequence  of  the  relations  and  corelated 
nature  of  said  power  and  object.     If  philosophers  are  not  satisfied  with 
the  wliy,  as  revealed  in  the  above  necessary  and  sejf-evident  principle, 
then  this  xohy  must  for  ever  remain  to  them  and  to  us  a  profound  and 
impenetrable  mystery.     We  have  no  means  of  knowing  why  any  con- 
ditions are  necessary  to  the  existence  of  real  knowledge,  and  aside  from 
the  reason  above  given,  why  knowledge  arises  when  these  conditions  are 
fulfilled.      By  absolute   necessity    our   legitimate  inquiries   are  wholly 
confined  to  the  actual  conditions,  objects,  and  forms  of  knowledge  which, 
in  fact  do  exist,  and  to  what  is  implied  by  the  same.     A  priori  we  can 
by  no  possibility  determine  whether  any  power,  and  much  less  what 
power  of  knowledge,  does  exist,  what  are  its  objects,  and  what  are  the 
necessary  conditions  of  its  action.     The  existence  of  a  power  of  knowledge 
can  be  known  but  through  the  conscious  fact  of  actual  knowledge.     The 
nature  of  that  power  can  be  determined  but  through  conscioiis  forms  and 
objects  of  knowledge.     The  conditions  of  the  possibility  of  human  know- 
ledge can  be  determined  but  through  the  conscious  conditions  in  which 
actual  knowledge  does,  in  fact,  arise.     The  extent  and  limits  of  our  faculty 
of  knowledge  are  determinable  but  through  the  actual  facts,  forms,^and 
objects  of  human  knowledge  and  what  is  implied  by  the  same.     The 
absolute  validity  of  all  the  above  statements  is,  undeniably,  self-evident. 
If  neither  philosophers  nor  anybody  else  can  conceive  how  and  why 
knowledge  in  any  given  form  is  possible  and  therefore  real,  that  is  no 
reason  whatever  why  we,  in  the  presence  of  the  conscious  fact  of  such 
knowledge,  should  deny  its  actual  existence,  the  how  and  the  why  in  the 
sense  now  under  consideiation  being  in  all  cases  of  real  knowledge  equally 
and  absolutely  mysterious  to  us. 

No  forms  of  philosophizing  can  be  more  absurd  than  is  the  assumption 
of  certain  schools  in  Philosophy  that  they  can  determine  it  priori  whether 
any  and  what  real  powers  of  knowledge  do  exist,  what  is  the  nature  of 
the  human  intelligence,  what  objects  does  it  and  can  it  know,  and  what 
are  the  specific  conditions,  extent,  and  limits  of  human  knowledge. 

11—2 


i64  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Any  conceivable  is  undeniably  a  possible  form  of  knowledge,  and  any 
one  actually  conceivable  form  is  in  itself  just  as  possible  and  probable  a 
form  as  any  other.  How,  then,  can  anyone  determine  b,  priori  that  this 
form  does  exist,  and  that  that  cannot,  and  does  not,  exist  ?  and  that  this 
or  that  is  the  immutable  condition  of  valid  knowledge  in  all  cases  ?  On 
the  assumed  authority  of  a  priori  insight,  the  Materialist  affirms  that  the 
immutable  condition  of  valid  knowledge  is  that  the  subject  and  object  of 
knowledge  shall  be  exterior  to  each  other.  On  the  assumed  authority  of 
the  same  insight.  Idealists  of  one  school  affirm  that  valid  knowledge  is 
conditioned  on  a  'synthesis  of  being  and  knowing;'  and  another,  on  *the 
absolute  identity  of  being  and  knowing.'  Sceptics,  on  the  same  authority, 
affirm  actual  knowledge  impossible  on  any  of  these  conditions.  Realists, 
on  the  other  hand,  on  the  undeniable  authority  of  consciously  conceivable, 
possible,  and  actual  facts  of  actual  knowledge,  affirm  knowledge  to  be 
possible  and  actual  both  in  its  exterior  and  interior  forms.  Now,  we  affirm 
that  the  Materialist,  Idealist,  and  Sceptic  have  just  as  much  and  no  more 
power  to  determine  h  priori  the  specific  number,  form,  and  dimensions  of 
all  objects  on  the  other  side  of  the  moon,  as  they  have  to  determine  the 
specific  nature  of  the  human  intelligence,  its  objects  of  valid  knowledge, 
the  conditions  of  its  valid  activity,  and  the  extent  and  limits  of  its  sphere. 
iSome  philosophers  affirm  that  the  how  and  the  why  of  knowledge  are  to 
them  conceivable  but  in  one  specific  form ;  others,  that  to  them  this  how 
and  why  are  conceivable  but  in  another  and  opposite  form ;  while  others 
affirm  that  the  same  how  and  why,  but  as  above  stated,  are  to  them 
equally  mysterious  in  all  forma.  What  shall  we  do  ?  This  only  can  we 
do.  We  can  determine,  through  conscious  facts,  what  we  know,  and  what 
is  implied  by  actually  existing  forms  of  conscious  knowledge.  We  can 
thus,  and  thus  only,  fully  meet  all  the  real  demands  of  science  upon  this 
subject. 

SECTION  V. 

IN  WHAT  SENSE  AND  FORM  IS  HUMAN  KNOWLEDGE  RELATIVE 
AND  PHENOMENAL? 

All  our  world-knowledge,  we  are  taught  in  certain  schools,  is  merely 
phenomenal,  and  in  no  case  has  anything  more  than  a  relative  validity. 
In  what  sense  and  form  are  such  statements  valid  ?  The  primary  meaning 
of  the  term  '  phenomenon'  is  appearance.  An  object  is  manifested  to  us. 
The /orm  of  the  manifestation  is  called  a  phenomenon  of  said  object  All 
the  forms  of  its  manifestation  are  called  its  phenomena.  The  question, 
«nd  the  only  question,  for  science  in  this  connection  is  this :  In  pheno- 
mena, are  realities  manifested  as  they  are,  or  as  they  are  not  1    Is  percep- 


HUMAN  KNOWLEDGE,  RELATIVE  AND  PHENOMENAL.     165 

tion,  external  and  internal,  what  the  Transcendental  Philosophy  affirms 
it  to  be,  *  an  unavoidable  illusion  inhering  in  reason  itself,'  or  is  it  a 
source  of  real,  valid  knowledge  \ 

In  FhenommOf  Ohjeds^  are  Manifested  as  they  are^  and  not  as  they 

are  not. 

Let  us  first  contemplate  perception  in  its  consciously  indirect  and 
mediate  form,  through  sensation.  A  sensation,  we  will  suppose,  is  induced 
in  the  mind.  As  an  object  of  direct  and  immediate  consciousness,  we  un- 
deniably know  the  sensation  itself  as  it  is,  and  not  as  it  is  not.  So  far  the 
phenomenal  and  the  real  are  identical.  With  the  sensation,  however,  a 
form  of  necessary  and  absolute  knowledge  arises — to  wit,  that  this  sensa- 
tion had,  and  must  have  had,  a  cause.  Two  forms,  not  of  illusory,  but  of 
real  knowledge,  are  obtained  by  sensation :  a  real  knowledge  of  the  sub- 
jective state  itself,  and  of  the  fact  that  real  causes  do  exist — causes  adapted 
and  adequate  to  produce  said  states.  So  far  our  knowledge  is  undeniably 
not  illusory,  but  real ;  and  this  is  all  that  is  given  as  actually  known  in 
the  case.  For  all  practical  purposes  we  are  able  to  determine,  with  suffi- 
cient accuracy,  in  what  specific  objects  these  causes  exist.  What  is  given 
as  absolutely  known,  however,  is  the  fact  and  nature  of  the  sensation  itself, 
and  the  actual  existence  in  the  universe  of  real  causes  adequate  and  adapted 
to  produce  the  sensation.  It  alters  not  the  reality  or  validity  of  our 
knowledge  to  affirm  that  if  our  sensibility  was  differently  constituted  from 
what  it  now  is,  our  sensations  would  be  diverse  from  what  they  are. 
Suppose  that  this  department  of  our  nature  was  changed,  and  that  in  each 
change  totally  new  sensations  were  induced.  In  such  case  our  knowledge 
of  the  possibilities  of  our  sensitive  nature,  and  of  the  nature  of  existing 
causes,  would  be  enlarged,  but  would  not  be  less  real  and  certain  than  it 
now  is.  So  far,  then,  we  repeat,  the  phenomenal  and  the  real  are 
identical. 

The  case  holds,  with  the  same  absoluteness,  in  respect  to  all  forms  of 
consciously  direct  and  immediate  knowledge.  In  all  such  cases,  in  the 
language  of  Sir  William  Hamilton,  '  the  object  is  conceived  as  perceived,' 
and  to  affirm  *  that  we  perceive  the  object  to  exist,  and  know  it  to  exist, 
is  to  affirm  the  same  thing.'  In  all  such  conscious  forms  of  knowledge, 
to  affirm  that  we  do  not  know  objects  as  they  are,  and  that  the  pheno- 
menal and  the  real  are  not  one  and  identical,  is,  in  the  language  of  the 
same  author,  to  affirm  '  consciousness  to  be  a  liar  from  the  beginning.' 
It  is,  undeniably,  a  hallucination  of  false  science  to  affirm  that  pheno- 
mena, or  illusory  appearances,  stand  between  the  Intelligence  and  the 
conscious  obiects  of  direct  and  immediate  knowledge. 


1%  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

The  Dogma  that  all  our  World-Knowledge  is  mere  Illusory  Appearance. 

Iiet  us  for  a  few  moments  contemplate  the  dogma  that  all  forms  of 
world,  and  we  might  add  necessary,  knowledge  is  mere  illusory  appear- 
ance. This  is  the  common  doctrine,  as  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  rightly 
affirms,  of  all  anti-theistic  philosophers  of  all  ages.  At  the  same  time,  all 
these  philosophers  agree  and  avow  that  the  Intelligence  is  so  constituted 
that  it  does  and  must  originate  these  phenomena,  and  also  believe  in  their 
validity.  We  need  not  repeat  what  is  quoted  in  the  General  Introduction 
from  such  authors  as  Kant  and  Coleridge  on  this  subject.  To  the  same 
effect  we  now  cite  the  authority  of  Mr.  Spencer  himself.  *  It  is  impos- 
sible,'he  says,  'to  get  rid  of  the  consciousness  of  an  actuality  lying  behind 
appearances ;'  and  *  from  this  impossibility,'  he  adds,  '  the  indestructible 
belief  in  that  actuality.'  The  common  doctrine  of  all  these  systems  em- 
braces the  following  essential  items  :  1.  The  Intelligence  is  so  immutably 
constituted  that,  from  its  changeless  nature  and  laws,  it  must  originate 
these  illusions.  2.  For  the  same  reasons,  it  must  believe  in  the  actuality 
of  the  objects  of  these  appearances — that  is,  in  illusions.  3.  From  its 
nature  and  laws,  it  finally  discerns  the  unavoidable  cheat  which  it  neces- 
earily  perpetrates  upon  itself.  4.  After  the  cheat  has  been  discovered,  the 
belief  in  the  actuality  of  the  objects  of  these  known  illusions  remains  as 
•indestructible'  as  before.  6.  To  be  philosophers,  we  must,  *  by  a  scien- 
tific scepticism  to  which  we  voluntarily  determine  ourselves,'  compel  our- 
selves to  treat  these  '  indestructible  beliefs,'  which  '  cannot  be  removed 
by  grounds  or  arguments,'  'as  nothing  but  a  prejudice.'  Such,  undeni- 
ably, is  the  real  creed  of  these  philosophers.  This  creed  palpably  embraces 
this  dogma — that  the  Intelligence,  from  its  changeless  nature  and  laws, 
must  believe  in  a  lie,  knowing  and  avowing  it  to  be  such. 

On  the  supposition  that  the  Intelligence  is  divinely  constituted,  we 
have  here  an  infinite  slander  upon  our  Creator,  to  wit,  that  He  has  so 
constituted  that  faculty  that  it  must  originate  a  lie,  then  discover  the 
falsehood,  and  finally  believe  in  it  after  its  character  is  known;  It  is 
undeniable  that  an  infinite  and  perfect  God  might  have  constituted,  in 
the  stead  of  such  a  lying  power,  a  faculty  of  real  knowledge.  What  must 
be  His  character  if,  instead  of  a  faculty  of  real  integrity.  He  has  originated 
Buch  a  monstrosity  as  these  philosophers  make  the  human  intelligence  to 
be  ]  If,  on  the  other  hand,  this  Intelligence  was  not  divinely  constituted, 
we  have,  in  the  dogma  before  us,  a  slander  equally  monstrous  upon 
nature  itself;  for  we  have  here  the  doctrine  that  nature  in  her  highest 
laws,  those  of  the  Intelligence,  is  throughout  a  blank  lie,  and  nothing 
else.  Such  are  the  absurdities  which  we  must  embrace  or  admit  and 
affirm  the  identity  of  the  phenomenal  and  real 


BUMAN  KNO IVLEDGE,  RE  LA  Tl  VE  AND  PHENOMENAL.       167 

The  Eeal  Itelativity  of  Knoicledffe. 

It  is  only  to  us  as  human  beings,  it  is  gravely  affirmed,  that  our  ■world- 
knowledge  and  necessary  ideas  have  validity  for  realities  as  they  are  in 
themselves.  To  intelligences  constituted  intellectually,  or  even  sensi- 
tively, different  from  us,  there  n;ay  be  no  such  realities  as  matter  and 
spirit,  time  and  space,  and  no  validity  to  the  proposition  2x2  =  4,  or 
to  the  axioms  such  as  'Things  equal  to  the  same  things  are  equal  to 
each  other.'  In  reply  we  have  only  to  say  that  if  mankind  alone  can 
ajiprehend  and  comprehend  such  simple  truths  as  these,  human  beings 
are  the  only  rational  beings  that  do  exist.  We  meet  with  a  human 
being  who  cannot  be  taught  that  2  X  2  =  4,  or  that  a  circle  is  not  a  square. 
We  justly  regard  and  treat  him  as  an  idiot.  So  ought  we  to  regard  all 
beings  who  reveal  similar  forms  of  incapacity. 

To  affirm  that  there  can  be  rational  beings  who  can  comprehend  the 
axioms,  numbers,  and  figures  referred  to,  and  not  judge  of  them  as  we 
do,  is  one  of  the  greatest  conceivable  absurdities.  Knowledge  is,  un- 
deniably, not  relative  in  this  sense,  that  it  does  not  really  and  truly 
represent  its  objects. 

The  opposite  dogma  is  certainly  incapable  of  proof.  E"o  one  will  pre- 
tend that  it  has  self-evident  validity.  Nor  can  any  class  of  real  intelli- 
gents  be  produced  to  whom  matter  and  spirit  and  time  and  space  are  not 
realities,  and  with  whom  2x2  does  not  equal  4,  or  things  equal  to  the 
same  things  are  not  equal  to  one  another.  Nor  can  we  form  any  con- 
ception of  the  nature  of  that  kind  of  rationality  to  which  2x2  =  10,  or 
things  equal  to  the  same  things  may  be  one  of  them  twice  as  large  as  the 
other.  In  no  such  sense  as  that  under  consideration  has  our  knowledge 
a  mere  relative  validity.  If  the  term  relativity  means  that  the  extent  of 
real  knowledge  with  us  is  limited  by  the  nature  of  our  faculty  of  know- 
ledge, that  is,  that  we  cannot  know  realities  which  we  are  not  capacitated 
to  know,  we  have  before  us  a  mere  truism,  a  truism  very  needlessly 
uttered.  *  A  thing  of  which  one  has  no  knowledge,'  as  Professor  Samuel 
Harris,  D.D.,  has  well  said,  *is  neither  false  nor  true  for  him,  but  simply 
unknown.  Philosophy  would  have  been  saved  from  a  great  deal  of  con- 
fusion on  this  point  had  it  been  kept  in  mind  that  false  and  true  apply 
only  to  the  knowable  or  the  known.' 

If  the  term  relativity  is  assumed  to  mean  that  we  can  know,  not  sub- 
stance itself,  that  is,  substance  without  attributes,  but  only  the  attributes 
of  being,  we  find  ourselves  in  the  presence  of  two  essential  errors,  namely, 
that  there  may  be  substance  or  being  without  attributes,  and  that  there 
may  be  attributes  without  substance.  Pure  being,  that  is,  substance 
without  attributes,  is  a  non-entity,  and  the  idea  of  attributes  without  a 
subject  involves  the  same  form  of  contradiction  as  that  of  an  event  with- 


l68  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

out  a  cause.  Substances  and  attributes  are  necessarily  connected,  and 
substances  must  be  as  their  attributes.  So  far,  therefore,  as  we  know  tho 
attributes  of  being,  we  know  being  itself;  and  so  far  as  we  know  the 
real  attributes  of  being,  we  know  being  as  it  is.  Our  knowledge  of 
being  is  limited  because  our  knowledge  of  its  attributes  is  limited.  If 
we  knew  all  the  attributes  of  being,  we  should  have  a  perfect  knowledge 
of  being  itself.  Limited  knowledge,  also,  as  far  as  it  extends,  is  just  as 
real  and  true  of  being  as  full  or  perfect  knowledge.  The  idea  that  there 
luay  be  sometliing  in  what  is  called  the  ultimate  essence  of  being  which 
will  invalidate  our  present  knowledge  of  its  attributes,  or  do  away  with 
these  attributes,  is  a  chimera  of  false  science.  We  have  quite  as  much 
reason  to  affirm  that  the  ultimate  essence  is  wholly  embraced  and  re- 
vealed in  its  known  as  in  its  unknown  attributes ;  and  we  have  no  reason 
whatever  for  eitlier  supposition.  Ultimate  essence  is  partially  revealed 
by  every  known  attribute,  and,  we  repeat,  it  is  fully  revealed  when  all 
attributes  are  known. 

Nor  does  the  fact  that  only  a  part  of  the  attributes  of  being  are  known 
invalidate  the  classification  of  substances  in  view  of  their  known  attri- 
butes. We  may  not  know,  for  example,  all  the  properties  or  relations  of 
the  circle  or  square.  Notwithstanding  this,  we  know  absolutely,  on 
account  of  their  known  properties  and  relations,  that  a  circle  is  not  and 
cannot  be  a  square.  We  are  also,  no  doubt,  profoundly  ignorant  of 
many  of  the  attributes  both  of  matter  and  spirit.  In  view  of  their 
known  attributes,  however,  we  are  as  absolutely  and  rationally  assured 
that  matter  is  not  spirit  as  we  are  that  a  circle  is  not  a  square. 

Relativity  of  knowledge  is,  by  some  philosophers,  affirmed  to  mean  that 
we  know  merely  the  relations  of  qualities,  and  not  the  realities  them- 
selves. '  Every  complete  act  of  consciousness,'  says  Mr.  Spencer,  *  besides 
distinction  and  relatinn,  also  implies  likeness.  Before  it  can  become  an 
idea  or  constitute  a  piece  of  knowledge,  a  mental  state  must  not  only  be 
known  as  separate  in  kind  from  certain  foregoing  states  to  which  it  is 
known  as  related  by  succession ;  but  it  must  further  be  known  as  of  the 
same  kind  with  certain  other  foregoing  states.' 

Here  we  have  quite  a  number  of  fundamental  errors  of  the  gravest 
character.  Among  them  we  specify  the  following  :  1.  The  Intelligence 
has  the  capacity  to  discern  the  relations  of  things  without  knowing  at  all 
what  these  things  themselves  are,  that  is,  in  absolute  ignorance  of  the 
numbers  2  and  4,  we  can  know  absolutely  that  2x2  =  4.  Without  fear 
of  contradiction  we  affirm  that  a  greater  absurdity  can  hardly  be  imagined. 
2.  Until  after  classification,  and  not  even  then,  it  should  have  been  said, 
can  we  have  any  conception  whatever  of  the  realities  classified.  *  Before 
the  feelings  produced  by  intercourse  with  the  world  have  been  put  in 
order,  there  are  no  cognitions  strictly  so-called.'     In  other  words,  FielcU 


HUMAN  KNOWLEDGE,  RELATIVE  AND  PHENOMENAL.     169 

Marslial  Maltke  must  have  fully  organized  Lis  armies  before  he  could 
have  known  that  a  Fingle  soldier  existed  to  be  organized.  The  antece- 
dent is  here  substituted  for  the  consequent.  Cognitions  of  individuals 
must  exist  before  classification  is  possible.  3,  According  to  this  dogma, 
we  have  derivative  cognitions  without  the  primitive.  The  latter  must  in 
its  original  form  have  pertained  to  one  single  individual  irrespective  of 
every  other.  For  the  real  cognition  must  have  arisen,  or  the  derived 
could  not  exist,  unless  the  axiom,  '  Ex  nihilo,  nihil  fit,'  is  false.  The 
idea  that  relations  are  discernible  in  utter  ignorance  of  the  things  related 
is  an  absurdity  than  which  none  can  be  greater.  In  no  such  sense  as 
this,  then,  can  relativity  be  affirmed  of  human  knowledge.  When  an 
object  '  has  absolutely  no  attribute  in  common  with  anything  else,'  Mr. 
Spencer  assures  us  '  it  must  be  absolutely  beyond  the  bounds  of  know- 
ledge.' Such  an  object,  we  reply,  can  be  both  known  and  classified. 
By  intuition  we  could  perceive  and  conceive  its  real  attributes.  On 
reflection  Ave  could,  in  view  of  the  principle  of  unlikeness,  separate  it 
from  all  other  known  objects.  According  to  Mr.  Spencer,  knowledge,  in 
any  new  form,  is  impossible,  such  knowledge  being  unlike  all  existing 
forms.  How,  then,  is  progression  possible  %  that  is,  in  the  language  of 
our  author,  '  advancing  from  the  definite  homogeneous  to  the  definite 
heterogeneous  '1 


SECTION  VL 

PHYSIOLOGY  AND  METAPHYSICS. 

Physiologt  and  other  physical  sciences  among  the  Greeks,  that  is,  in 
certain  schools  of  Greece,  did  supplant  metaphysics.  The  disciples  of 
the  New  Philosophy  in  modern  times  affirm  that  *  as  sure  as  every  future 
grows  out  of  the  past  and  present,  so  will  the  physiology  of  the  future 
gradually  extend  the  realm  of  matter  and  law,  until  it  is  coextensive 
with  knowledge,  with  feeling,  and  with  action.'  Thus  we  are  informed 
that  the  halcyon  day  is  near  when  the  scalpel  and  microscope  will  super- 
sede consciousness  and  reflection  in  the  development  of  the  science  of 
mind.  The  time  is  come  when  the  fundamental  distinction  between 
metaphysics  and  all  other  sciences  should  be  distinctly  understood. 

Our  hypothesis  on  this  subject  is  this,  that  mental  science  proper  is 
just  as  distinct,  separate  from,  and  independent  of,  physiology,  as  it  is  of 
the  mathematics,  astronomy,  natural  philosophy,  or  geology.  The  tele- 
scope of  the  astronomer,  and  the  hammer  of  the  geologist,  have  just  as 
much,  and  no  more,  to  do  in  the  sphere  of  metaphysics,  as  the  crucible  of 
the  chemist,  and  the  microscope  and  scalpel  of  the  physiologist.  What 
are  the  real,  and  only  real  phenomena  of  the  mind  1     They  are,  un- 


170  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

deniably,  all  comprehended  in  these  three  classes — thought,  feeling,  and 
•willing.  If  we  will  take  into  consideration  any  mental  state  or  act,  and 
ask  ourselves  the  question,  "What  is  the  nature  of  this  state  1  we  shall 
find  that  from  no  physiological  fact,  and  from  no  state  of  the  brain  or 
nervous  system,  can  we  gain  the  remotest  conception  of  this  mental  state. 
There  are,  for  example,  physiological  conditions  of  sensation.  But  when 
we  ask  the  question  what  sensation,  as  a  sensitive  state,  is,  we  can  gain 
no  more  light  upon  this  subject  from  the  action  of  our  physical  system, 
than  we  can  from  that  of  a  steam-engine.  What  if  a  physiologist  should 
assure  us  that  by  a  careful  analysis,  under  a  strong  microscope,  of  the 
nerve  of  the  tooth,  together  with  the  connection  of  that  nerve  with  the 
other  portions  of  the  body,  he  had  discovered  the  exact  nature  of  that 
peculiar  form  of  sensation  denominated  toothache  1  We  should  hardly 
hesitate  to  affirm,  that  the  proper  place  for  *our  new  philosopher'  is 
the  Lunatic  Asylum.  Geology  and  rail-splitting  throw  just  as  much 
light  upon  the  nature  of  all  our  sensitive  and  emotive  states  as  physi- 
ology does. 

The  same  holds  true  of  all  our  intellectual  states.  External  perception, 
for  example,  is  always  preceded  by  certain  physiological  conditions.  In 
the  analysis  and  study  of  these  conditions,  however,  we  can  no  more 
determine  what  perception  is  in  itself,  or  what  are  its  objects,  extent,  and 
limits,  than  we  can  in  the  study  of  chaos.  Does  the  physiology  of  the 
eye  reveal  the  nature  and  objects  of  vision  ?  The  conditions  of  vision 
are  one  thing.  Vision  itself  is  quite  another.  What  resemblance  is  there 
between  the  brain  and  thought?  The  nature  of  the  action  of  the  faculty 
of  Self-consciousness  is  no  more  revealed  through  the  physiology  of  the 
human  brain  than  it  is  through  that  of  the  trunk  of  an  elephant.  There 
is  not  a  single  state  or  movement  of  the  body  that  reveals,  in  any  form, 
the  nature  of  any  sensitive,  emotive,  or  intellectual  state. 

The  same  remarks  are  equally  and  especially  applicable  to  all  mental 
states  denominated  will.  Two  individuals  affirm  themselves  able  to  ex- 
plain, and  fully  elucidate,  the  nature  and  laws  of  all  the  phenomena  of 
this  mysterious  faculty  denominated  the  human  will.  One  of  these  men 
has  gotten  all  his  knowledge  upon  this  subject  in  the  profound  study  of 
the  mechanism  and  workings  of  a  windmill,  and  the  other  in  a  similar 
study  of  '  the  house  we  live  in ' — the  human  body.  We  have  just  as 
much  reason  to  expect  real  light  from  one  of  these  individuals,  as  we  have 
from  the  other.  In  metaphysics  we  have  but  one  faculty  for  the  deter- 
mination of  facts — Self-consciousness.  All  questions  resolvable  through- 
out the  entire  sphere  of  this  science  are  to  be  resolved  in  the  light  of  facts, 
not  of  external,  but  exclusively  of  internal  perception.  Metaphysics  is 
•wholly  an  internal  science,  and  all  its  valid  deductions  have  but  one 
basis,  facts  of  internal  perception.     Physiology  is  wholly  an  external 


PHYSIOLOGY  AND  METAPHYSICS.  171 

science,  and  has  its  exclusive  basis  in  facts  of  external  perception.  Phy- 
siology is  as  really  and  truly  an  external  science  as  is  geology  or  astronomy. 
We  might  as  properly  base  our  deductions  in  mental  science  upon 
geological  or  astronomical,  as  upon  physiological  facts.  We  might  as 
properly  determine  the  nature  of  thought,  feeling,  and  willing,  and  con- 
sequently the  faculties  and  laws  of  mind,  in  view  of  the  properties  and 
relations  of  a  triangle,  a  circle,  or  square,  as  by  means  of  an  analysis  of 
the  brain,  or  the  nervous  system.  The  immutable  laws  of  induction  and 
deduction  in  the  science  of  mind,  laws  as  stated  by  Cousin,  have  absolute 
and  universal  authority,  namely,  Omit  no  conscious  facts,  and  suppose 
none  not  given  by  Consciousness.  The  facts  thus  given  are  not  to  be 
moulded  to  meet  the  exigence  of  desired  hypotheses,  but  are  to  be  inter- 
preted with  absolute  integrity.  If  metaphysicians  would  accept  of  the 
real  facts  of  the  universal  consciousness  just  as  they  find  them,  if  they 
would  abjure  all  *  acts  of  scientific  scepticism  to  which  they  voluntarily 
determine  themselves,'  if  they  would  repudiate  all  assumptions,  and 
honestly  discriminate  between  facts  of  real  and  assumed  knowledge,  and 
with  all  integrity  seek  to  know  mind  as  God  made  it,  and  not  as  they 
would  have  it,  the  time  is  not  distant  when  there  will  be  as  little  differ- 
euce  of  opinion  in  metaphysics  as  in  natural  philosophy. 


SECTION  VIL 

FORMS  OF  PROGRESSION  COMMON  TO  ANTI-THEISTIC  SYSTEMS 
OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Anti-theistic  systems  of  Philosophy  always  take  their  points  of  departure 
and  their  specific  forms  from  negations  of  particular  kinds.  In  all  ages 
and  among  all  schools  in  which  the  reality  of  matter  and  spirit,  and  time 
and  space,  and  the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  the  same,  have  been 
admitted,  the  being  and  perfections  of  a  personal  God  have  been  affirmed. 
A  denial  of  this  doctrine  has  always  been  based  upon  a  denial  of  the 
validity  of  our  knowledge  of  matter,  on  the  one  hand,  or  of  spirit,  on  the 
other,  or  of  both  in  common.  Idealism  takes  rise  and  form  from  the  first 
form  of  denial,  Materialism  from  the  second,  and  Scepticism  from  the  last. 
These  systems  have  generally  followed  each  other  in  the  order  above 
named.  Anti-theisra  has  never,  for  any  considerable  time,  taken  on  any 
specific  and  fixed  form,  a  denial  of  the  doctrine  of  a  personal  God  ex- 
cepted, but  has  embodied  itself  in  each  system  of  unbelief  as  it  and 
while  it  was  an  object  of  the  popular  faith.  As  God  stands  prominently 
revealed  in  the  popular  mind  as  the  Creator  of  the  visible  universe, 
a  denial  of  Uis  being  and  perfections  is  most  commonly  in  its  first 


172  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

form,  based  upon  a  denial  of  the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  said 
universe.  Heuce  the  rise  of  Anti-theism  in  the  form  of  Idealism,  which 
in  succession  takes  on  the  form,  first  of  Ideal  Dualism,  then  of  Subjective 
Idealism,  then  of  Pantheism,  and  finally  of  Pure  Idealism.  For  no  con- 
siderable period  can  the  mind  in  any  age  continue  long  within  the  circle 
of  either  of  these  systems,  but  passes  successively  from  the  first,  through 
the  intermediate  forms,  to  the  last,  *  the  driest  place,'  which  *  the  unclean 
spirit  *  of  unbelief  ever  traverses.  Finding  less  rest  and  assurance  here 
than  in  any  previous  forms  of  anti-theistic  thought,  and  pressed  with  the 
reality  of  the  external  universe,  another  class  of  thinkers  arise — thinkers 
who  affirm  the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  matter,  and  deny  its  validity 
of  spirit.  Materialism,  and  with  it  Atheism  now  takes  on  the  form  of 
popular  belief.  After  reposing  for  a  period  amid  the  naked  forms  of  a 
godless  universe,  the  mind  becomes  oppressed  with  a  sense  of  inward 
desolation  and  want,  and  also  with  the  immutable  conviction  that  it  has 
precisely  the  same  reasons  for  denying  the  validity  of  matter  that  it  can 
have  for  impeaching  our  knowledge  of  spirit.  Another  class  of  thinkers 
now  arise,  denying  the  validity  of  knowledge  both  in  its  subjective  and 
objective  forms,  and  confounding  the  advocates  of  these  antagonistic 
systems  •with  the  arguments  which  they  have  been  employing  against 
each  other.  As  both  parties  are  perfectly  powerless  against  this  new  form 
of  attack,  Scepticism  in  its  turn  becomes  ascendant,  and  commands  the 
popular  faith.  During  the  freshness  of  its  early  espousal,  universal  doubt 
appears  to  the  general  mind  as  an  angel  of  light.  Absolute  vacancy, 
universal  doubt,  and  hopeless  nescience,  each  and  all  are  states  so  un- 
natural and  repulsive  to  our  necessary  and  irrepressible  desires  for  real 
knowledge,  that  Scepticism  never  can,  for  long  periods,  hold  the  human 
mind  under  its  barren  control.  Humanity,  from  its  nature  and  laws,  will 
believe  in  *  chimeras  dire,'  rather  than  in  the  impossibility  of  knowing 
anything. 

Under  such  circumstances,  the  mind  will  accept  of  the  doctrine  of  a 
personal  God,  or  reaccept  some  of  the  forms  of  Idealism,  the  first  most 
likely.  Then  the  mind  will  recommence  the  circle  of  successive  beliefs 
above  described,  and  return  finally  to  the  sceptical  form  of  thought. 
Ever  since  the  commencement  of  the  anti-theistic  philosophy,  as  far  as 
the  mind  has  been  subjected  to  its  influence.  Anti-theism  has  been  moving 
in  this  one  fixed  circle,  successively  embracing  and  repudiating  the  same 
identical  systems.  Anglo-Saxon  unbelief  is  now  under  the  control  of  the 
oldest  form  of  Scepticism  known  in  the  history  of  Philosophy — a  form 
miscalled  'The  New  Philosophy.'  We  shall  see  hereafter  that  this 
affirmed  new  system  is,  in  fact  and  form,  as  old  as  Protagoras  and  other 
Greek  sceptics,  now  known  as  the  ancient  Sophists.  The  next  great 
movement  of  philosophic  thought  will  be  in  the  direction  of  the  doctrine 


ANTl-THEISTIC  SYSTEMS  OF  PHILOSOPHY.  173 

of  a  personal  God,  and  of  creation  *  by  the  word  of  God,'  or  a  recom- 
mencement of  the  old  cycles  which  have  been  so  often  repeated  in  the 
history  of  past  ages,  and  which  we  are  hereafter  to  elucidate.  We  state 
the  above  facts  as  preparatory  to  a  distinct  apprehension  of  the  systems 
which  we  are  to  examine.  In  Greece  we  shall  find  the  old  Oriental 
systems,  with  the  exception  of  Theism  proper  and  Scepticism,  repeated  in 
fact  and  form.  In  modern  forms  of  philosophical  thought  we  shall  find 
the  Grecian  repeated,  the  theistic  and  sceptical  included. 


SECTION  VIIL 

THE  SCHOOLS  OF  PHILOSOPHY  IN  GREECE. 

Prior  to  the  Socratic  period  three  leading  schools  in  philosophy  arose  in 
Greece,  that  of  Ionia,  the  Italic,  and  the  Eleatic  schools,  the  two  last 
named  being  located  in  what  was  denominated  Graecia  ^[ajor.  As  the 
result  of  the  teachings  particularly  of  the  two  schools  last  named,  there 
arose  in  ditferent  parts  of  Greece  a  class  of  sceptics  known  under  the  title 
of  Sophists. 

After  Socrates  Athens  became  the  great  centre  of  literature  and  philo- 
sophic thought  in  Greece.  Here  various  schools  arose,  such  as  were 
generally  known  as  the  Cynic,  the  Sceptical,  the  Platonic,  Aristotelic, 
Epicurean,  and  Stoic  schools.  The  general  doctrine  of  members  of  these 
schools  was  identical,  while  each  school  was  peculiarized  by  special  moral 
teachings  from  which  it  received  its  special  designation.  After  what  is 
generally  denominated  the  Socratic  period  had  passed,  the  era  of  what  ia 
called  the  decline  of  the  Greek  philosophy  commenced — the  era  in  which 
the  doctrines  of  previous  schools,  especially  those  of  the  Platonic,  took 
on  in  important  particulars  new  forms. 

We  shall  accordingly  comprehend  our  examination  of  the  Greek 
philosophy  in  three  general  divisions — the  Pre-Socratic,  the  Socratic,  and 
the  FostSocratic  periods  or  schools. 

With  equal  propriety  the  Greek  philosophy  as  a  whole  might,  as  has 
been  done  in  some  important  works,  be  divided  into  two  principal 
evolutions,  the  first  extending  from  Thales  to  Socrates,  the  second  from 
Socrates  to  Sextus  Empiricus.  For  the  sake  of  special  distinctness,  wo 
have  taken  into  account  the  three  general  evolutions  above  designated, 
and  shall  divide  our  examination  of  this  philosophy  into  a  corresponding 
number  of  chapters.  The  following  extract  from  the  epitome  of  the 
History  of  Philosophy  will  enable  the  reader  to  appreciate  what  will  be 
found  in  these  chapters  : 

*  The  Greek  colonies  of  Asia  Minor  and  of  Italy  connected  by  position, 


174  ^  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY, 

the  former  with  Phoenicia  and  Chaldea,  the  latter  with  Egypt,  were  the 
double  cradle  of  Hellenic  philosophy.  In  this  respect  they  were  in 
advance  of  Greece  proper.  We  might  say  that  before  throwing  itself 
into  the  country  which  was  destined  to  become  the  theatre  of  its  great 
conflicts,  Philosophy  took  its  position  around  it  and  made  as  it  were  ' 
preparatory  attempts  at  conquest.  But  the  two  tendencies  begun  in  the 
former  period  were  reproduced  in  this.  The  Italic  school  continued 
under  the  new  forms  the  theological  and  the  metaphysical  speculations  of 
the  East.  The  Ionic  school  separated  Philosophy  much  more  from  tradi- 
tional science  preserved  in  the  sanctuaries.  As  the  several  schools  of 
Philosophy — schools  originally  formed  in  Asia  Minor — and  the  Greek 
portions  of  Italy  were  transferred  to  Athens,  they  brought  with  them,  we 
would  add,  their  special  peculiarities  of  doctrine  and  methods  of  philo- 
sophizing, and  thus  imparted,  by  the  collisions  and  interminglings  of 
opposite  principles  and  methods,  a  peculiar  character  and  movement  to 
philosophic  thought  throughout  the  Socratic  and  Post-Socratic  periods.' 
Without  a  distinct  apprehension  of  the  facts  above  stated,  it  would  be 
much  more  difficult  to  comprehend  the  diverse  and  opposite  phases  and 
methods  of  the  Greek  philosophy.  The  reader  who  has  fully  compre- 
hended the  statements  and  discussions  of  the  present  introduction,  together 
with  what  has  gone  before,  will  readily  understand  and  appreciate  what 
is  to  follow. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  PnE-SOCRATIC  EVOLUTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY. 

SECTION  L 
THE  TONIC  SCHOOL— THALES  OF  MILETUS. 

ThaTjES  of  Miletus,  born  about  six  centuries  before  the  Christian  era,  and 
founder  of  the  celebrated  school  of  Ionia,  is,  by  general  consent,  regarded 
as  the  father  of  the  Greek  philosophy.  With  him,  unquestionably,  com- 
menced the  first  marked  evolution  of  Philosophy  among  this  people.  In 
such  regard  was  he  held  by  his  countrymen  that  he  takes  rank  as  one 
among  the  seven  wise  men  of  Greece.  As  a  scholar  he  was  not  only 
acquainted  with  the  literature  and  philosophy  of  the  Eastern  nations, 
but  was  *  learned  in  all  the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians,'  having  frequently 
visited  Egypt  for  purposes  of  observation  and  study.  With  him  originated 
also  the  maxim  which  has  justly  immortalized  his  name — to  wit,  *  Know 
thyself' 

ExposUion  of  the  Doctrines  of  Tholes. 
We  shall  with  great  care  exhibit  the  ascertained  views  of  this  philosopher, 
because  we  shall  thus  obtain  a  central  light  which  will  guide  us  safely 
in  subsequent  and  darker  inquiries.  All  agree  that  he  taught  the  reality 
of  matter  and  of  an  organized  material  universe.  All  agree,  also,  that  he 
held  and  taught  a  definite  hypothesis  in  regard  to  the  nature  and  state  of 
the  material  elements  prior  to  their  organization  as  we  now  find  them. 
Nor  do  any  doubt  that  he  held  and  taught  definite  views  in  regard  to  the 
ultimate  and  unconditioned  cause  of  the  change  of  the  condition  of  these 
material  elements  from  their  primal  chaotic  state  to  one  of  which  order  is 
the  *  first  law  '  and  all-controlling  principle.  At  this  point  a  difference 
of  opinion  arises.  Some  affirm  that  under  Thales  the  Ionic  school  was 
materialistic,  and  consequently  atheistic  in  its  teachings  and  influence, 
while  others  maintain  that  he  held  and  taught  the  doctrine  of  one 


176  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

supreme  God  as  the  Creator  proper  of  the  universe.  Holdinj:;,  as  all  admit 
and  affirm  that  he  did,  to  the  real  existence  of  matter  and  to  its  original 
existence  in  a  chaotic  state,  he  must  have  held  and  taught  that  the 
material  elements  were  brought  into  a  state  of  universal  organization  by 
a  law  of  order  existing  and  acting  potentially  in  matter  itself,  or  by  a 
divine  force  or  cause  ah  extra.  As  the  writings  of  this  author  have  not 
come  down  to  us,  we  are  necessitated  to  depend  upon  the  records  of  his 
utterances  and  doctrines  handed  down  by  others  living  at  subsequent 
periods.  Such  sources  of  information,  as  we  shall  find,  are  perfectly 
satisfactory.  We  will  first  consider  the  cosraological  and  then  the 
theistic  doctrine  and  teachings  of  this  world-renowned  thinker. 

The  Cosmological  Doctrine  and  Teachings  of  Thales. 

The  common  idea  of  all  world- thinkers  who  hold  the  doctrine  of 
material  existence  is  that  the  primal  state  of  matter  is  properly  repre- 
sented by  the  term  chaos.  Whether  this  chaos  was  in  a  fluid,  nebulous, 
igneous,  or  aeriform  state,  here  a  difi"erence  of  opinion  obtains.  What 
were  the  teachings  of  Thales  on  this  subject?  All  authors,  ancient  and 
modern,  agree  that,  according  to  this  thinker,  the  primal  state  of  matter 
is  represented  by  the  term  fluidity — in  other  words  that  the  material 
universe  was  developed  out  of  water.  Earth  he  held  to  be  water 
condensed,  air  to  be  water  rarefied,  and  fire  to  be  rarefied  air. 

Hippo,  of  Samos  or  Regium,  a  philosopher  who  lived  about  two  cen- 
turies after  Thales,  maintained  the  same  doctrine,  affirming  moisture,  or 
water,  as  embracing  the  constituent  elements  of  the  material  universe. 
Aristotle  suggests  that  '  Thales  was  impressed  with  the  idea  that  water 
contains  the  constituent  elements  of  all  matei-ial  forms,  by  observing  the 
fact  that  all  things  appear  to  be  nourished  by  this  element,  and  that  it  is 
present  in  all.*  We  very  probably  have  here  one  real  cause  of  the  idea 
under  consideration.  We  suggest  another  equally  probable  co-operating 
cause,  to  which  we  shall  subsequently  refer.  Thales,  in  his  multitudinous 
travels  and  researches  for  information,  could  hardly  have  remained  ignorant 
of  such  an  author  as  Moses,  from  whose  account  of  the  creation  Longinus 
subsequently  cites.  Had  Thales  not  read  or  heard  that,  according  to 
Moses,  the  material  universe  rose  from  chaos,  because  '  the  Spirit  of  the 
Lord  moved  upon  the  face  of  the  waters'?  As  we  are  now  treating  of 
probabilities,  no  material  error  can  arise  from  either  of  the  suggestions 
before  us. 

The  Theistic  Dodnne  and  Teachings  of  TJmles. 

We  now  advance  to  the  consideration  of  a  question  about  which  a 
diflFerence  of  opinion  does  obtain  among  modern  writers  on  the  history  of 
Philosophy.     We  refer  to  the  Theistic  doctrines  and  teachings  of  Thales. 


THE  IONIC  SCHOOL,  177 


The  issue  before  us  is  this — Did  this  philosopher  teach  that  the  material 
universe  took  form  from  a  law  of  order  acting  potentially  in  matter  itself, 
or  from  the  all-formative  agency  of  God  ?  To  affirm  that  he  taught  the 
doctrine  of  creation  by  natural  law  is  to  charge  him,  without  proof,  to 
have  held  and  taught  a  palpable  absurdity.  A  law  of  order  existing  and 
acting  potentially  in  matter,  and  thus  existing  and  acting  through  no  ex- 
terior cause,  must,  by  hypothesis,  have  existed  and  acted  there  from 
eternity,  and  from  eternity  matter  must  have  existed  in  an  organized,  and 
not  in  a  disorganized,  state.  A  primal  chaos  could  by  no  possibility  have 
produced  order.  This  principle,  as  we  shall  find  hereafter,  early  suggested 
itself  to  the  Grecian  mind,  and  gave  peculiar  and  special  forms  to  the 
doctrine  of  MaterialisuL  The  absurdity  of  the  doctrine  of  organization 
from  chaos  by  an  eternally  existing  and  acting  natural  law  or  cause  is,  we 
admit,  no  absolute  proof  that  Thales  did  not  hold  and  teach  it ;  because, 
as  it  has  been  well  said,  no  great  absurdity  can  be  named  which  has  not 
for  ages  been  a  leading  dogma  of  some  leading  sect  in  Philosophy.  What 
we  do  argue  is  this — that  without  positive  proof  (and  no  such  proof  exists), 
no  such  absurdity  should  be  charged  upon  this  great  philosopher. 

Wliile  a  difference  of  opinion  does  exist  among  modern  historians  about 
his  views  on  the  subject  before  us,  no  known  ancient  author,  as  we  shall 
see,  cliarged  him  with  being  a  mere  Naturalist.  This  is  a  very  important 
fact  to  be  taken  into  account  in  the  formation  of  our  judgment  on  this 
question.  But  what  positive  proof  have  we  that  he  was,  in  the  strictest 
sense  of  the  word,  a  Theist  ?  On  this  subject  we  invite  a  careful  exami- 
nation of  the  following  facts  and  considerations  : 

1.  From  the  known  circumstances  of  his  birth  and  life,  and  the  re- 
corded facts  pertaining  to  his  travels,  studies,  and  habits  of  thought,  the 
deduction  is  undeniable  that  he  must  have  been  fully  informed  of  the 
nature  and  character  of  Theistic  ideas  and  doctrines,  and  must  have  main- 
tained definite  views  in  respect  to  the  doctrine  of  ultimate  causation.  We 
have  no  evidence  at  all,  but  positive  proof  to  the  contrary,  that  the 
doctrine  of  one  Supreme  God,  the  Creator  and  Governor  of  the  universe, 
was  ever  absent  from  Greek  thought.  We  have  proof  equally  positive, 
as  we  have  shown,  that  this  was  the  common  doctrine  of  all  surrounding 
nations,  barbarian  and  civilized.  In  his  travels  and  studies  in  Egypt 
and  other  countries  he  must  have  become  familiar  with  the  doctrine  of 
God  as  expounded  by  learned  men  among  the  Egyptians,  Phoenicians, 
Chaldeans,  and  Persians.  Nor  could  he  have  been  ignorant  of  the  doc- 
trine of  his  near  neighbours  the  Jews  pertaining  to  the  being  and  govern- 
ment of  God.  The  fame  of  Solomon  and  the  prophets,  and  especially  of 
Daniel,  his  contemporary,  must  have  reached  Ionia,  and  have  been  known 
to  Thales.  The  captivity  and  dispersion  of  the  Jews  by  the  Assyrians 
and  Chaldeans,  events  which  transpired  prior  to  and  during  the  age  of 

12 


178  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

this  individual,  spread  the  knowledge  of  the  writings  and  doctrines  of 
that  people  over  all  Asia  Minor  and  the  Eastern  nations.  To  affirm 
Thales  to  have  been  ignorant  of  the  doctrine  of  God,  is  to  affirm  him  to 
have  been  one  of  the  most  stupid,  unobservant,  and  ignorant  men  that 
Greece  ever  produced — and  all  this  without  evidence  not  merely,  but  in 
the  face  of  positive  proof  to  the  contrary — and  to  affirm  it  from  no  other 
reason  than  to  sustain  a  false  and  absurd  modern  theory  pertaining  to  the 
origin  of  Theistic  ideas.  We  have,  in  the  above  undeniable  facts,  a  full 
refutation  of  the  argument  of  such  authors  as  Hegel  and  Lewes,  that 
Thales  could  not  have  held  and  taught  the  doctrine  of  God,  because  the 
idea  of  God  had,  in  his  age,  no  place  in  the  Grecian  mind. 

2.  The  testimony  of  Aristotle — testimony  a  part  of  which  has  been  so 
often  cited  to  the  contrary — the  testimony  of  Aristotle  taken  all  together, 
we  say,  is  perfectly  conclusive  that  Thales  was,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the 
term,  a  Theist.  The  statement  of  Aristotle  so  often  cited  to  prove  Thales 
to  have  been  a  mere  Naturalist,  proves,  in  fact,  no  such  thing.  The 
passage  is  this  :  *  Of  those  who  first  philosophized,  the  majority  assumed 
only  material  principles  as  elements — Thales,  the  originator  of  this  philo- 
sophy, taking  water  for  his  principle.'  Had  Aristotle  said  no  more,  there 
might  be  found  in  this  passage  conjectural,  though  not  conclusive,  ground 
for  the  inference  that  Thales,  among  others,  was  a  mere  Materialist. 

Let  us  now  contemplate  the  positive  testimony  of  Aristotle  bearing  in 
the  opposite  direction.  Thales  '  is  reported,'  says  Aristotle,  '  to  have  said 
that  the  loadstone  possessed  a  soul  because  it  could  move  iron.'  Here, 
then,  we  have  a  distinct  statement  of  the  fact  that  Thales  held  the  old 
doctrine,  avowed  even  by  Newton,  of  the  vis  inertia  of  matter.  So  strongly 
did  he  hold  to  this  doctrine,  that  he  attributed  the  attracting  power  of 
the  loadstone,  not  to  a  principle  inhering  and  acting  potentially  in 
matter  itself,  but  to  the  moving  power  of  a  spirit  acting  in  that  material 
object.  We  perceive,  also,  how  clearly  the  ideas  of  matter  on  the  one 
hand,  and  of  spirit  on  the  other,  were  distinguished  and  separated  in  the 
mind  of  this  philosopher.  If  this  philosopher,  as  he  undeniably  did, 
held  the  doctrine  of  the  inertia  of  matter  in  such  an  absolute  form,  that  he 
would  not  admit  the  possibility  of  the  attractive  power  of  the  loadstone, 
but  through  the  moving  agency  of  mind,  much  less  could  he  have  held 
the  doctrine  of  the  formation  of  the  material  universe  from  water  through 
the  exclusive  influence  of  a  law  of  material  order  existing  and  acting 
potentially  in  such  a  dull  and  inert  thing  as  he  held  matter  to  be.  If  he 
attributed  even  the  attractive  power  of  the  loadstone  to  the  moving 
agency  of  spirit,  much  more  must  he  have  held  the  doctrine  of  the 
organization,  by  mind,  of  the  universe  from  chaos  to  perfect  order. 

'  Some  think,'  says  Aristotle  once  more,  *  that  soul  and  lift  is  mingled 
with  the  whole  universe,  and  thence  perhaps  was  that  [opinion]  of  Thales 
that  all  things  are  full  of  gods.' 


THE  IONIC  SCHOOL,  179 


This  *  perhaps '  pertains  merely  to  the  origin  of  the  belief  of  thu 
universality  of  the  divine  agency  in  the  universe.  If  we  had  no  testi- 
mony but  that  of  Aristotle,  we  should  be  bound  to  regard  Thales  as  a 
real  Theist. 

3.  But  the  direct  and  positive  testimony  which  has  been  handed  down 
to  us  from  other  ancient  authors  fully  vindicates  for  Thales  a  place  among 
the  great  Theistic  thinkers  of  the  world.  *  Thales  of  Miletus,'  says 
Cicero,  '  the  first  who  engaged  in  these  inquiries,  says  that  water  is  the 
original  of  all  things,  and  that  God  is  that  Intelligence  who  from  water 
formed  all  things.'  Again,  as  recorded  by  another  ancient  author,  Thales 
said,  *  God  is  the  most  ancient  of  all  things,  be^jause  he  is  unmade  and 
uugenerated.'  Diogenes  Laertius,  after  attributing  to  him  the  same 
sentiment  that  Aristotle  does,  *  that  the  world  is  animated  and  full  of 
gods,'  records  another  of  the  utterances  of  Thales  in  this  form,  *  God  is 
the  most  ancient  of  all  things,  for  he  has  no  birth ;  the  world  is  the  most 
beautiful  of  all  things,  for  it  is  the  workmanship  of  God.'  The  author  of 
'  De  Placitis  Philosophorum,'  as  cited  by  Cudworth,  affirms,  that  in 
common  with  Pythagoras  and  Plato,  'Thales  held  the  soul  to  be  an 
incorporeal,  self-acting,  and  intelligent  substance.'  No  one  who  is  guided 
by  evidence,  and  no  pre-formed  hypothesis  in  respect  to  the  origin  of 
Theistic  ideas,  will  doubt  for  a  moment  the  fact  that  Thales  held  and 
taught  the  doctrine  of  the  real  existence  of  matter  and  spirit  as  distinct 
and  separate  entities,  and  of  a  supreme  personal  God,  the  Creator  proper 
of  the  universe. 

Anazimander  and  Ancmmenea. 

Thales  had  presented,  for  all  who  admitted  the  existence  of  matter  and 
of  a  material  universe,  the  definite  problem,  what  was  the  primeval  state 
of  the  material  elements,  the  state  which  preceded  organization.  The 
ancients  almost,  or  quite,  universally  divide  the  material  elements  into 
four  classes,  earth,  air,  fire,  and  water.  Hypotheses  pertaining  to  the 
primeval  state  of  the  material  elements  would  naturally  take  form  from 
one  or  the  other  of  these  classes.  As  no  one  woxxld  suppose,  that  the 
primeval  state  was  that  of  solidity,  but  four  hypotheses  would  naturally 
present  themselves,  to  wit,  the.  fluid,  the  aeriform,  the  igneus,  or  the 
indefinite.  Thales  had  adopted  the  first :  Anaximander,  who  is  generally 
reported  to  be  the  immediate  successor  of  the  founder  of  the  school, 
adopted  the  last ;  Anaximenes  adopted  the  second. 

Anaximander  assumed,  that  the  primeval  state  of  matter  must  have 
been  a  formless  one.  This  state,  he  argues,  could  not  have  been  a  fluid 
one,  because  fluidity  implies  form.  For  the  definite,  he  consequently 
assumed  the  indefinite,  as  representing  the  primeval  state  after  which  we 
are  inquiring.     Eepudiating,  also,   the  doctrine  of  God  as  needful  to 

12—2 


l8o  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

account  for  the  organization  of  the  universe,  he  affirmed  that  *  the  Infinite 
is  the  origin  of  all  things.'  How  this  philosopher  deduced  the  finite 
from  the  infinite,  not  enough  is  known  of  his  system  to  enable  us  to 
decide.  All  that  we  know  is,  that  through  this  thinker  a  kind  of  in- 
definite form  of  Pantheism,  and  that  in  an  indefinite  material  form,  was 
early  introduced  into  the  sphere  of  Grecian  thought. 

Anaximen^iS  assumed  a  position  intermediate  between  the  undefined 
Infinite  of  Anaximander  and  the  definite  hypothesis  of  fluidity  adopted 
by  Thales.  For  the  indefinite,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  more  solid 
element  of  water,  on  the  other,  Anaximenes  substituted  air,  as  con- 
stituting the  original  substance.  Air  was  without  him  and  within,  and 
was  everywhere  more  widely  diffused  than  water.  All  things  visible, 
then,  were  developed  out  of  this  element.  Generally,  if  not  universally, 
among  modern  historians,  but  for  what  definite  reasons,  as  Dr.  Cocker 
has  well  observed,  none  can  inform  us,  this  thinker  has  been  supposed  to 
agree  with  Anaximander,  in  denying  the  agency  of  God  in  creation.  If 
Anaximenes,  in  common  with  the  founder  of  his  school,  was  a  Theist,  the 
former  would  argue  the  question  at  issue  between  him  and  his  predecessor, 
just  as  he  has  done,  and  the  record,  or  accounts  of  this  discussion,  and 
not  their  points  of  agreement,  might  come  down  to  us  in  their  present 
form.  We  can  perceive  no  good  grounds,  therefore,  for  charging  him 
with  Atheism,  or  for  affirming  that  he  was  a  Theist.  When  nothing 
positive  is  known,  wisdom  and  integrity  prohibit  the  expression  of 
positive  opinions, 

Anamgoras. 

The  inquisitiveness  of  the  Greek  mind  would  not  be  long  in  appre- 
hending the  difficulty,  or  impossibility,  of  deducing  by  natural  law  the 
perfectly  determinate  from  the  absolute  indeterminate,  or  universal  order 
from  utter  chaos,  whatever  the  form  of  the  latter.  It  was  in  this  state 
that  Anaxagoras  of  Clausamenae,  in  Asia  Minor  (500 — 428  B.C.),  took 
up  the  question  of  the  origin  of  the  universe.  In  early  life  he  became  so 
enamoured  with  Philosophy  that  his  great  estate  which  he  had  inherited 
was  neglected  and  ran  to  waste.  When  reduced  to  beggary  he  exclaimed, 
*  To  Philosophy  I  owe  my  worldly  ruin,  and  my  soul's  prosperity.' 
Leaving  his  own  country,  he  came  to  Athens  and  commenced  teaching, 
having  for  his  pupils  such  scholars  as  Pericles,  Euripides,  and  the  young 
Socrates.  His  great  popularity  and  success  soon  begat  him  enemies, 
through  whose  influence  he  was  tried  and  condemned  to  death,  as  his 
pupil  Socrates  afterwards  was.  The  death-sentence  of  the  former,  how- 
ever, was  exchanged  for  banishment.  In  his  banishment  he  remarked : 
'  It  is  not  I  who  have  lost  the  Athenians  ;  it  is  the  Athenians  who  have 
lost  me.' 


THE  IONIC  SCHOOL,  i8i 


The  philosophy  of  Anaxagoras  stands  at  an  equal  remove  from 
MaterialisQ],  on  the  one  hand,  and  from  Idealism  on  the  other.  No 
philosopher  of  any  age  has  more  clearly  marked  the  distinction  between 
matter  and  spirit  and  the  material  and  mental  universe,  or  more  distinctly 
affirmed  God  as  its  author,  than  he.  The  primal  chaos  of  the  material 
elements  he  represented  as  an  infinite  or  indefinite  number  of  material 
particles  difi'used  through  infinite  space.  The  power  which .  organized 
these  particles  into  the  universe  which  now  is,  is  the  infinite  and  eternal 
mind.  On  all  these  subjects  the  teachings  of  this  philosopher  are  per- 
fectly explicit.  Matter,  as  substance,  he  held  to  be  eternal ;  as  organized, 
to  be  an  event  of  time.  *  Wrongly  do  the  Greeks,'  he  says,  '  suppose 
that  aught  begins  or  ceases  to  be ;  for  nothing  comes  into  being  or  ceases 
to  be ;  but  all  is  an  aggregation  or  accretion  of  pre-existent  things ;  so 
that  all  becoming  might  more  correctly  be  called  becoming  mixed,  and 
all  corruption  becoming  separate.' 

His  idea  of  God  is  thus  expressed  in  a  passage  from  him  preserved  by 
Simplicius  :  *  Intelligence  '  (Nouj.  or  God)  *  is  infinite  and  autocratic  ;  it  is 
mixed  up  with  nothing,  but  exists  alone  in  and  for  itself.  Were  it  other- 
wise, were  it  mixed  up  with  anything,  it  would  participate  in  the  nature 
of  all  things  ;  for  in  all  there  is  a  part  of  all,  and  so  that  which  was  mixed 
with  intelligence  would  prevent  it  from  exercising  power  over  all  things.' 
In  another  portion  of  the  passage  preserved  by  Simplicius,  Anaxagoras 
says :  '  Intelligence  is,  of  all  things,  subtlest  and  purest,  and  has  entire 
knowledge  of  all.  Everything  which  has  a  soul,  whether  great  or  small, 
is  governed  by  the  Intelligence.  Intelligence  knows  all  things,  both 
those  that  are  mixed  and  those  that  are  separate,  and  the  things  which 
ought  to  be,  and  the  things  which  were,  and  those  things  which  now 
are,  and  those  things  which  will  be;  all  are  arranged  by  Intelligence.' 
The  original  term  .here  rendered  Intelligence  is  unquestionably  employed 
by  this  philosopher  to  represent  the  idea  of  the  Supreme  God,  and  God 
is  here  represented  not  only  as  the  all-formative  and  all-controlling 
power,  but  as  the  all-knowing  Intelligence. 

*  The  Nou;  (God)  of  Anaxagoras,'  says  Simplicius,  '  as  cited  by  Aristotle, 
is  a  principle,  infinite,  independent,  omnipresent,  the  subtlest  and  purest 
of  things,  and  incapable  of  mixture  with  aught  besides;  it  is  also  omniscient 
and  unchangeable.'  God,  according  to  the  teachings  of  Anaxagoras,  is 
neither  identified  with  natiire,  nor  nature  with  him.  No  modern  Theist 
can  more  distinctly  and  clearly  set  forth  the  doctrine  of  matter  and  spirit, 
of  creation  and  a  Creator,  and  of  God  as  distinct  and  separate  from  the 
universe  which  He  created  and  controls,  than  is  done  by  this  ancient 
philosopher. 

The  criticism  of  Aristotle  upon  the  doctrine  of  Anaxagoras,  while  it 
confirms  the  fact  that  the  latter  did  teach  as  above  stated,  is  a  just  CAUse 


l82  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

of  the  deepest  reproach  to  the  critic.  'Anaxagoras,'  says  Aristotle,  'uses 
Intelligence  as  a  machine  in  respect  to  the  formation  of  the  world ;  so 
that  when  he  is  embarrassed  how  to  explain  the  cause  of  this  or  that,  he 
introduces  Intelligence  \  but  in  all  other  things  it  is  any  cause  but  Intel- 
ligence which  produces  things.'  Anaxagoras,  in  common  with  all  men, 
spoke  of  two  classes  of  causes,  the  proximate  and  the  ultimate.  When 
speaking  of  the  former  he  did  not,  and  when  speaking  of  the  latter  he 
did,  refer  to  Intelligence.  The  same  distinction,  as  Mr.  Lewes  observes, 
Aristotle  himself  makes. 

We  cite  one  other  passage  from  Anaxagoras,  a  passage  preserved  by 
Diogenes  : '  Formerly  all  things  were  a  confused  mass ;  afterwards,  Intel- 
ligence coming,  arranged  them  into  worlds.'  Did  not  this  philosopher 
receive  his  ideas  of  the  creation,  and  of  God  as  the  Author  of  that  creation, 
from  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis] 

To  Anaxagoras  belongs  the  honour  of  presenting  the  only  possible  solu- 
tion of  the  problems  raised  by  the  Ionic  School  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
Italic  or  Pantheistic  School  on  the  other.  The  problem  raised  by  the 
former  school  is  this — how  to  deduce  universal  order  from  chaos,  or  unity 
from  'the  many.'  That  raised  by  the  latter  school,  which  taught  that 
but  one  absolute  unity  exists,  as  the  sole  substance  or  principle  of  all 
things — the  problem  raised  by  this  school  is  this  :  how  to  deduce,  from 
absolute  unity,  '  the  many.'  Materialism  falls  to  pieces  upon  the  first 
problem,  and  Idealism  upon  the  second.  Anaxagoras  accepted  of  the 
doctrine  of  matter,  as  affirmed  by  the  former  school ;  and  of  one  infinite 
and  eternal  spirit,  as  affirmed  by  the  latter.  Through  the  all-creative  and 
controlling  agency  of  the  infinite  and  eternal  Spirit  upon  matter  or  '  the 
many,'  the  latter  becomes,  from  *  a  confused  mass '  or  indefinite  and  dis- 
organized '  many,'  an  absolutely  organized  unity. 

As  the  merits  of  Anaxagoras  in  developing  the  true  answer  to  the  great 
question  of  the  origin  and  certainty  of  human  knowledge  cannot  be  more 
correctly  or  better  expressed  than  has  been  done  by  Dr.  Cocker  in  the 
work  to  which  we  have  before  referred,  we  most  gladly  avail  ourselves 
of  the  following  paragraph  from  said  work  on  the  subject  before  us :  *  On 
the  question  as  to  the  origin  and  certainty  of  human  knowledge,  Anaxa- 
goras differed  from  the  lonians  and  the  Eleatics.  Neither  the  sense  alone, 
nor  the  reason  alone,  were  for  him  a  ground  of  certitude.  He  held  that 
reason  (Xoyou)  was  the  regulative  faculty  of  the  mind,  as  the  Nou;  or 
Supreme  Intelligence,  was  the  regulative  power  of  the  universe.  And  he 
admitted  that  the  senses  were  veracious  in  their  reports,  but  that  they 
reported  only  in  regard  to  phenomena.  The  senses,  then,  perceive  plieno- 
mena,  but  it  is  the  reason  alone  which  recognises  nouviena;  that  is,  reason 
perceives  being  in  and  through  phenomena,  substance  in  and  through 
qualities — an  anticipation  of  the  fundamental  principle  of  modern  psycho- 


THE  IONIC  SCHOOL.  183 


Idgy,  '■Hhii  every  'power  or  substance  in  existence  is  knowable  to  us  io  far  only 
as  we  know  its  phenomena."  Thus,  agaiu,  does  he  bridge  the  chasm  that 
separates  between  the  Sensatioualist  and  the  Idealist.' 

Mr.  Lewes  corrected. 
We  stop  here  for  a  moment  to  notice  the  attempt  of  Mr.  Lewes  to 
prove  that  Anaxagoras  held  the  modern  Idealistic  distinction  between 
phenomena  and  noumena,  and  confined  our  knowledge  to  the  former. 
^Noumena,'  says  Mr!  Lewes,  *is  the  antithesis  to  phenomena,  which  means 
appearance.  Noumena  means  the  substratum,  or,  to  use  a  scholastic  word, 
the  substance.  Thus,  as  matter  is  recognized  by  us  only  in  its  manifesta- 
tions (phenomena),  we  may  logically  distinguish  these  manifestations  from 
the  thing  manifested  (noumenon).  And  the  former  will  be  the  materia 
circa  quam;  the  latter,  the  materia  in  qua.  Noumenon  is,  therefore, 
equivalent  to  the  essence;  phenomena  to  the  manifestation.*  Now,  iu 
'manifestation'  or  'phenomenon,'  'noumenon'  or  'substHuce'  must  be 
perceived  as  it  is,  or  as  it  is  not.  In  the  former  case,  phenomenon,  as  far 
as  it  extends,  and  noumenon,  or  substance,  are  one  and  identical,  and  our 
knowledge  of  substance  has  perfect  validity.  In  the  latter  case,  we  have 
no  manifestation  of  substance  at  all — that  is,  we  have  a  manifestation 
which  is  no  manifestation ;  substance,  not  revealed  as  it  is,  is  not  mani- 
fested at  all.  Further,  in  external  perception,  the  percipient  subject 
and  the  thing  perceived  (phenomeuon)  are  perfectly  distinct  and  separate 
the  one  from  the  other,  or,  in  the  language  of  Sir  William  Hamilton, 
'consciousness  is  a  liar  from  the  beginuiug.'  If  phenomenon  is  distinct 
and  separate  from  the  exterior  substance,  as  it  is  from  the  percipient  sub- 
ject, then  we  have  three  forms  of  being,  all  equally  real — the  perceiving 
mind,  the  phenomenon  perceived,  and  the  substance  not  perceived  at  all. 
In  other  words,  we  have  existing  without  us  real  appearances  which  are 
realities  in  themselves,  and  which  are  the  attributes  of  no  substances,  and 
real  substances  existing,  it  may  be,  without  attributes.  The  doctrine  of 
appearance  in  which  nothing  appears,  of  manifestation  in  which  nothing 
is  manifested,  and  of  phenomeuon  without  substance,  is,  in  the  language 
of  Mr.  Lewes,  '  the  greatest  discovery  of  modern  psychology,'  and  one  of 
the  greatest  absurdities,  we  add,  that  ever  danced  in  the  brain  of  a  crazy 
philosophy.  Anaxagoras  neither  clearly,  nor  *  dimly  and  confusedly,' 
approached  such  a  discovery.  On  the  other  hand,  he  affirmed,  according 
to  Sextus  Empiricus,  that  *  phenomena  are  the  criteria  of  things  beyond 
sense.'  Anaxagoras  undeniably  believed  in  matter  and  spirit  as  distinct, 
and  separate,  and  known  entities,  and  in  the  infinite  and  eternal  Intelli- 
gence as  the  Author  and  Governor  of  the  universe,  and  as  *  cloirly  seen, 
being  understood,  by  the  things  that  are  made.' 


i84  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Obsebvation8   upon   the  Tbachinqs  and   Doctrines  of   the  Ionic 

School. 

We  here  close  our  lengthened  examination  of  the  teachings  and 
doctrines  of  this  celebrated  school  in  Philosophy.  Other  philosophers  of 
eminence  belonged  to  this  school.  As  their  doctrines  are,  in  all  essential 
particulars,  represented  through  the  systems  above  examined,  no  further 
examples  are  required.  Diogenes  of  Apollonia  (520 — 490  B.C.)  might 
not  improperly  he  ranked  as  belonging  to  this  school.  He  agreed  with 
Anaximenes  in  making  air  the  principle  of  all  things,  and  differed  from 
him  in  regarding  this  element  as  endowed,  not  only  with  vitality,  but 
even  with  conscious  intelligence.  He  agreed  with  Thales  and  Anaxagoras 
in  maintaining  that  order  can  result  but  from  intelligence.  '  Without 
reason,'  he  says,  *it  would  be  impossible  for  all  to  be  arranged  duly  and 
proportionately,  and  whatever  object  we  consider  will  be  found  to  be 
arranged  and  ordered  in  the  best  and  most  beautiful  manner.'  The 
philosophy  of  Diogenes,  like  that  of  his  master,  Anaximenes,  seems  to 
have  been  a  kind  of  material  Pantheism.  The  following  observations 
upon  the  doctrines  and  teachings  of  the  great  masters  of  this  school, 
deserve  special  attention. 

1.  The  method  of  this  school  was  for  the  most  part  inductive.  It  was 
this  method  which  preserved  the  elements  of  truth  within  the  circle  of 
Grecian  speculation,  and  rendered  the  Grecian  Philosophy  so  influential 
as  introductory  to  Christianity. 

2.  The  most  renowned  of  all  the  philosophers  of  Greece,  so  far  as  their 
teachings  ran  upon  the  track  of  truth,  were  indebted  to  this  school  for 
their  method  of  thought  and  leading  deductions.  To  the  teachings  of 
Anaxagoras  in  Athens,  Socrates,  and  through  him,  Plato  and  Aristotle, 
were  more  indebted  than  to  any  other  sources  of  philosophic  thought. 

3.  We  have,  in  the  final  deductions  of  this  school,  an  example  of  one 
great  central  fact  in  the  history  of  Philosophy,  or  better,  perhaps,  of  two 
fundamental  facts.  They  are  the  following  ;  1.  Whenever  and  wherever 
the  distinction  between  matter  and  spirit  has  been  recognized,  and  these 
have  been  regarded  as  separate  and  known  realities,  the  doctrine  of  one 
infinite  and  perfect  personal  God — the  Creator  and  Governor  of  the 
universe — has  been  distinctly  admitted  and  affirmed.  The  absolute 
validity  of  this  statement  is  fully  verified  by  all  the  known  facts 
developed  in  the  history  of  philosophic  and  Theistic  thought,  and 
nowhere  in  the  present  or  past  can  a  single  exception  to  it  be  found. 
2.  In  no  age  of  the  world,  and  in  no  system  of  so-called  Philosophy,  hfts 
that  doctrine  been  denied  but  upon  one  exclusive  basis — an  impeachment, 
in  fact  and  form,  of  the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  one  or  the  other  of 
these  substances,  or  of  both  in  common.     We  do  not  afiirm  that  all  who 


THE  IONIC  SCHOOL.  185 


have  denied  the  validity  of  our  knowledge,  in  either  form,  have  denied 
the  doctrine  of  a  personal  God.  What  we  do  say,  we  repeat,  is  that  this 
doctrine  has  never,  in  any  single  case,  been  denied  but  upon  the  express 
ground  of  the  impeachment  designated.  Admitting  the  reality  of  matter 
and  spirit,  and  the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  the  same,  and  the  truth 
of  the  doctrine  of  a  personal  God  is  so  absolutely  obvious  that  ao  thinker 
of  any  school  would  for  a  moment  deny  it.  Hence  the  fixed  persistency, 
in  the  present  and  in  all  past  ages,  of  Anti-theism  in  all  its  forms,  in  its 
assaults  upon  the  validity  of  the  Intelligence  as  a  faculty  of  knowledge. 

4.  In  this  age  Theiats  should  be  distinctly  aware  of  the  only  real  and 
fundamental  issue  between  Theism  and  Anti-theism.  All  is,  in  reality  and 
visibly,  iuvolveil  in  the  one  single  question  before  us,  (lu  validUy  of  the 
Intelligence  as  a  faculty  of  knowledge.  As  long  as  the  Theist  will  grant  to 
his  opponent  that  the  Intelligence,  either  in  respect  to  facts  without  or 
facts  within  us,  is  a  lie,  the  argument  will  be  with  the  latter.  The 
dogma  that  we  can  advance  through  '  the  palpable  obscure '  of  an.  un- 
known and  unknowable  nature  to  a  known  God,  is  too  obviously  absurd 
to  command  the  lespect  of  scientific  thought. 


SECTION  It 
THE   ITALIC  SOHOOL. 

Ptthagobas. 

In  writing  a  Critical  History  of  Philosophy,  that,  of  course,  cannot  be  a 
proper  object  of  criticism  which  cannot  be  understood.  These  remarks 
have  a  special  application  to  the  system  of  Pythagoras  (540 — 600)  and 
of  the  Italic  School,  which  he  founded  in  Magna  Grecia.  If  the  founder 
of  the  school,  or  his  disciples,  understood  what  he  or  they  taught,  it  is 
more  than  their  ancient  or  modern  readers  and  commentators  have  done. 
We  have  positive  testimony  that  they  did  employ  such  language  as  the 
following  :  '  Number  is  the  essence  of  things — everything  is  Number.' 
When  the  question  is  asked  whether  such  language  is  to  be  understood 
in  a  literal  or  symbolical  sense,  here  the  highest  authorities  are  at  issue. 
Aristotle  is  perfectly  positive  in  favour  of  the  former  construction.  *  They 
maintained,'  he  says,  'that  Number  was  the  beginning  (principle) of  things, 
the  cause  of  their  material  existence,  and  of  their  modifications  and  different 
states.  The  elements  of  Number  are  odd  and  even.  The  odd  is  finite,  the 
even  infinite.  Unity,  the  one,  partakes  of  both  these,  and  is  both  odd 
and  even.  All  Number  is  derived  from  the  one.  The  heavens,  as  we 
said  before,  are  composed  of  numbers.'     Again,  '  The  finite,  the  infinite, 


i86  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

and  the  one,  they  maintained  to  be  not  separate  existences,  such  as  are 
fire,  water,  etc. ;  but  the  abstract  infinite  and  the  abstract  one  are  re- 
spectively the  substance  of  the  things  of  which  they  are  predicated,  and 
hence,  too,  Number  is  the  substance  of  all  things.'  Among  the  ancient 
authorities  we  look  in  vain  for  any  specific  statement  of  the  Pythagorean 
system — a  statement  which  is  incompatible,  in  any  essential  particulars, 
with  that  given  at  length  by  Aristotle. 

Among  modern  authorities  of  the  highest  eminence,  some,  with  Mr. 
Lewes,  affirm  the  correctness  of  Aristotle's  statement ;  others,  such  as 
Eitter  and  Cocker,  take  the  opposite  ground,  and  affirm  that  the  term 
Number,  as  employed  by  Pythagoreans,  is  to  be  understood  in  a  symbolical 
sense.  The  reason  for  this  construction  is  thus  stated  by  Dr.  Cocker. 
*  On  a  careful  review  of  all  the  arguments,  we  are  constrained  to  regard 
the  conclusion  of  Eitter  as  most  reasonable.  The  hypothesis  "  that 
numbers  are  real  entities,"  does  violence  to  every  principle  of  common 
sense.'  We  do  not  perceive  the  force  of  tliis  argument,  for  the  reason 
that  in  this  doctrine,  as  expounded  by  Aristotle,  we  can  perceive  no 
greater  absurdity  than  is  involved  in  the  system  of  Pure  Idealism  as 
avowed  by  modern  thinkers  of  the  greatest  eminence — to  wit,  that  pure 
thouglit — thought  without  subject  or  object,  is  the  sole  existing  reality 
and  the  principle  of  all  things.  We  can  perceive  no  greater  difficulty  in 
combining  and  consolidating  a  granite  boulder  from  elements  extracted 
from  number,  than  from  those  extracted  from  mere  thought. 

Nor  do  we  believe  in  the  validity  of  the  following  fundamental  canon 
in  *  interpreting  the  philosophical  opinions  of  the  ancients ' :  '  The  human 
mind  has,  under  the  necessary  operations  of  its  own  laws,  been  compelled 
to  entertain  the  same  fundamental  ideas,  and  the  human  heart  to  cherish 
the  same  feelings,  in  all  ages.'  If  we  should  take  this  canon  as  our  guide, 
we  should  never  admit  that  in  Philosophy  such  systems  as  Materialism, 
Idealism  in  its  hydraheaded  forms,  and  Scepticism,  had  ever  been  deve- 
loped, and  that  in  religion  '  four-footed  beasts,  fowls  of  the  air,  creeping 
things,'  and  even  *  devils,'  had  been  objects  of  worship,  and  that  in  morals 
all  moral  distinctions  had  been  denied,  in  short,  that  '  professing  them- 
selves to  be  wise,  men  had  become  fools.'  The  true  canon  is,  to  take 
systems  as  we  find  them,  and  determine  the  depth  of  possible  human 
absurdity  by  the  actual  absurdities  which  men  have  avowed.  Nor  are 
philosophers  to  be  exempted  from  a  rigid  application  of  this  canon. 
Undeniable  facts  of  the  past  render  it  b,  priori  probable  that  of  all  human 
absurdities  the  greatest  will  be  found  in  systems  of  false  science. 

Nor  have  any  who  have  contended  for  the  symbolical  explanation  of 
the  language  under  consideration  been  able  to  tell  us  what  the  real  system 
is  which  stich  forms  of  utterance  do  symbolize.  The  doctrines  of  the 
Pythagerian  school  are,  by  such  construction,  merely  transferred  from  the 


THE  ITALIC  SCHOOL.  187 


palpable  absurd  to  'the  palpable  obscure.*  If  we  were  to  hazard  a  de- 
finite opiuion  about  the  real  system  of  the  Pythagoreans,  we  should 
designate  it  as  Pure  Idealism.  This  is  the  identical  sphere  in  the  firma- 
ment of  Grecian  thought  to  which,  after  careful  reading  and  reflection, 
we  have  assigned  this  school.  Number  is  itself  a  form  of  thought.  To 
affirm  that  Number  is  the  substance  and  principle  of  all  things  is  but 
another  form  of  utterance  in  which  pure  thought  under  the  laws  of 
Number  is  the  substance  and  principle  of  all  things.  As  Auaxagoras 
selected  the  term,  Intelligence,  to  represent  his  idea  of  God,  so  we  jud^e 
that  Pythagoras  selected  the  term,  Number,  to  represent  the  idea  of  pure 
thought,  thought  under  the  law  of  absolute  order  and  harmony.  In  this 
conclusion,  Dr.  Cocker  really  harmonizes.  *  Thus  we  have,  in  Pythagoras,' 
he  says,  'the  dawn  of  an  Idealistic  school.'  For  the  validity  of  this 
deduction  we  have  also  the  highest  French  authority.  In  the  '  Epitome 
of  the  History  of  Philosophy,'  from  which  we  formerly  made  important 
citations,  *  the  work  adopted  by  the  University  of  France,*  we  find  the 
following  statements  : 

'  Pythagoras  took  a  point  of  departure  opposite  to  that  of  the  school  of 
Thales,  and  followed  a  method  the  reverse  of  the  empirical  process  of  the 
lonians.  The  latter  set  out  from  facts,  and  endeavoured  by  generaliza- 
tion to  arrive  at  their  principles.  Their  logical  process  was  that  of 
induction-  Pythagoras  set  out  with  the  most  general  ideas  and  pro- 
ceeded by  the  method  of  deduction.  The  principle  of  things  with  him 
is  absolute  unity,  which  comprehends  everything.  He  designates  this 
by  the  name  of  Monad,  synonymous  with  the  originating  being  of  God. 
The  Monad  includes  spirit  and  matter,  but  without  separation  and  with- 
out division.  They  are  confounded  together  in  an  absolute  unity  of 
substance.  From  unity  proceeds  multiplicity,  and  this  multiplicity  is 
the  universe,  wherein  that  which  exists  in  God  in  the  state  of  unity  is 
produced  in  the  state  of  stparation  and  multiplicity.' 

Specific  doctrines  of  Pythagoras,  as  well  as  peculiar  terms  employed  by 
him,  evince  the  fact  that  his  Philosophy  is  of  Oriental  origin.  Such 
terms  as  Monad  and  Dyad,  the  doctrine  of  transmigration,  and  of  salva- 
tion by  absorption  into  God,  all  indicate  his  Egyptian  and  Oriental 
scholarship.  Nor  was  he  the  first  to  employ  the  term  Number,  to  repre- 
sent the  principle  and  substance  of  all  things.  '  Reason,'  says  Lao  Tseu, 
the  Chinese  philosopher,  '  has  produced  one ;  one  has  produced  two ; 
three  has  produced  all  things.' 

To  us  it  is  quite  evident  that  while  the  Idealism  of  Pythagoras  is 
really  identical  with  that  of  Hegel,  the  method  of  developing  the  system 
adopted  by  the  former  has  merit  equal,  if  not  superior,  to  that  adopted  by 
the  latter.  When  thought,  the  only  real  existence,  becomes  self-conscious, 
it  is,  according  to  Hegel,  powerless  for  self-development,  until  it  appre- 


l88  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY, 

bends,  in  idea,  something  and  nothing,  together  with  the  relation  of 
absohite  incompatibility  between  them.  From  the  perpetual  recurrence 
of  the  idea  of  this  relation  of  incompatibility,  the  universe,  a  mere  ideal 
creation,  rises  up  before  us,  as  a  reality  in  itself.  When  thought  becomes 
self-conscious  it  apprehends  itself  as  one,  with  an  idea  of  its  incompatible 
opposite,  the  many.  From  the  perpetual  recurrence  of  the  idea  of  the 
relations  of  the  one  and  the  many,  the  universe,  a  mere  ideal  creation, 
rises  before  ua  as  a  real  existence.  We  leave  it  to  *  Chaos  and  Old 
Night '  to  determine  which  system  has  the  highest  merit  in  its  form  and 
principle  of  development. 


SECTION  lit 
THE  ELEATIO  SCHOOL. 

Two  schools  in  philosophy  originated  in  Elea,  a  city  in  Grecia  Major. 
The  one  first  originated  was  denominated  the  metaphysical,  and  the 
other  the  physical  school  The  doctrines  of  the  former  were,  in  common 
with  those  of  the  Pythagoreans,  Idealistic.  The  latter  developed,  in  full 
perfection,  the  system  of  Materialism.  We  shall  consider  the  teachings 
of  these  schools  in  the  order  designated. 

The  Eleatic  Metaphysical  School. 
The  principal  representatives  of  this  school  were  three,  Xenophanes, 
Parmenides,  and  Zeno      The  views  of  each  seem  to  have  been,  in  certain 
particulars,  peculiar  to  himself,  each  of  the  two  latter  being  in  advance  of 
his  predecessors  in  the  direction  of  Pure  Idealism. 

Xenophanes,  the  founder  of  the  school,  was  bom  in  Colophon,  in 
Ionia  (569  b.o.,  according  to  Ueberweg,  and  forty  or  more  years  earlier 
according  to  other  authorities).  About  the  period  549  he  left  his  native 
country,  and  after  wandering  for  years  as  a  rhapsodist,  finally  settled  at 
Elea,  dying  at  about  100  years  of  age.  His  doctrines  have  come  down  to 
us  in  fragments  of  his  poems,  which  have  been  preserved  to  us  by  ancient 
authors,  and  in  authentic  statements  of  his  utterances  and  doctrines, 
handed  down  through  the  same  authorities.  We  have  conclusive  proof, 
we  judge,  that  with  Thales  and  Anaxagoras,  he  believed  in  the  reality  of 
an  external,  material  universe,  on  the  one  hand,  and  in  the  doctrine  of 
one  supreme  and  personal  God  on  the  other,  while  he  differed  from 
both,  and  other  great  thinkers  of  Greece,  and  surrounding  nations,  in 
denying  and  repudiating  utterly  the  Polytheism  of  all  ages.  Xenophanes 
was,  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word,  a  Monotheist.     A  mature  exami- 


THE  ELEATIC  SCHOOL.  189 

nation  of  the  subject  has  removed  all  doubt  from  our  mind  in  regard  to 
the  above  statement,  which  we  will  now  proceed  to  verify. 

He  affirmed  that  earth  and  water  are  the  elements  of  all  created  things. 
*  All  things  were  made  from  earth  and  water.'  He  also  taught  that  the 
earth  extends  to  an  unlimited  distance  downward,  and  the  air  upward,  a 
dogma  disputed  by  Empedocles  as  being  held  by  Xenophanes.  Ueberweg 
has  dispelled  all  doubt  in  respect  to  the  fact,  that  Xenophanes  held  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  real  existence  of  the  physical  universe. 

The  following  stanzas  evince  with  equal  absoluteness  his  belief  in  the 
doctrines  of  one  Supreme  God  : 

'  There  is  one  God,  of  all  beings,  divine  and  hnman,  the  greatest, 
Neither  in  body  alike  unto  mortals,  neitJter  in  mind,' 

•  All  sight,  all  ear,  all  intelligence ; 

Wholly  exempt  from  toil,  he  sways  all  things  by  thought  and  wilL* 

Take  the  following,  as  an  example  of  his  opposition  to  the  Polytheism 
of  his  own  and  of  surrounding  nations  : 

'  Bat  men  foolishly  think  that  Gods  are  bom  like  as  men  are, 
And  have,  too,  a  dress  like  their  own,  and  their  voice  and  their  figure  J 
But  if  oxen  and  lions  had  hands  like  ours  and  figures, 
Then  would  horses  like  unlo  horses,  and  oxen  to  oxen. 
Paint  and  fashion  their  god-forms,  and  give  to  them  bodies 
Of  like  shapes  to  their  own,  as  they  themselves,  too,  are  fashioned.* 

Of  the  doctrines  of  Homer  and  Hesiod,  he  thus  speaks  : 

*  Such  things  of  the  Gods  are  related  by  Homer  and  Hesiod 
As  would  be  a  sharae  and  abiding  disgrace  to  any  of  mankind. 
Promises  broken,  and  thefts,  and  the  one  deceiving  the  other.' 

It  could  hardly  be  said  that  Paul,  or  any  Christian,  or  Theistic  author 
has  given  forth  utterances  more  true,  or  appropriate  than  the  above. 
Xenophanes  was  not  a  Pantheist,  as  Mr.  Lewes  affirms,  nor  a  Polytheist, 
.as  other  Grecian  philosophers  generally  were,  but  a  Monotheist,  who 
believed  in  the  reality  of  matter  and  spirit,  and  in  God  as  the  creator 
and  governor  of  the  universe,  'by  thought  and  will.'  If  Pantheism 
represents  such  an  idea  of  the  universe  and  God  as  this,  *  our  heart's 
desire,  and  prayer  to  G<)d '  would  be,  that  all  men  were  Pantheista 

Parmenides  (rc.  536,  according  to  Lewes  and  Cocker,  and  569,  accord- 
ing to  Ueberweg)  succeeded  Xenophanes,  as  the  leader  of  the  Eleatio 
School,  and  was  the  first  among  the  Greeks  to  give  form  and  system  to 
the  doctrines  of  Idealism.  He  set  out  with  a  fundamental  distinction 
between  *  truth,'  real  knowledge,  and  *  opinion.^  The  faculty  which  gives 
the  former  is  reason,  that  which  gives  the  latter  is  sense.  He  took  no 
account  of  consciousness,  a  fundamental  error  in  Philosophy.  Reason, 
by  direct  and  immediate  insight,  gives  absolute  truth,  or  being,  that 


I90  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

which  is  real,  necessary,  imrantahle  and  eternal.  The  objects  of  sense, 
on  the  other  liand,  depending  as  its  insight  does  upon  the  ever  varying 
organism  of  the  individual,  and  varying  as  that  organism  varies,  the 
objects  of  sense,  therefore,  are  the  mere  ^seeming,'  and  not  realities  in 
themselves.  The  invalidity  6f  sense-perception,  he  thus  argues :  An 
ol'ject  either  does,  or  does  not,  exist.  'The  non-existent  is  the  unreal. 
Dbtween  the  existent  and  non-existent,  there  is  no  intermediate  form  of 
being.  To  say,  that  a  thing  is  "becoming,"  and  is  not,  is  absurd.'  So  far, 
our  philosopher  was  undeniably  right.  To  say,  as  philosophers,  whose 
doctrines  we  are  hereafter  to  consider,  did  teach,  that  there  may  be  a 
becoming  which  never  becomes,  is,  undeniably,  one  of  the  greatest  con- 
ceivable absurdities.  All  objects  of  sense-perception,  Parmenides 
affirmed,  were  of  this  fixed  character,  ever  varying  and  variable,  always 
seemingly,  and  never  really  becoming.  Such  objects  have  a  mere  illusory, 
and  no  real  existence.  Thus,  the  reality  of  the  universe  of  matter  and 
finite  spirit  was  denied.  Nothing  is  left  as  real,  but  the  immutable,  the 
necessary  and  eternal,  which  is  the  object  of  reason. 

In  such  reasoning,  we  hardly  need  to  add,  we  have  the  vicious  error 
of  deducing  the  universal  from  the  particular.  Knowledge,  through  sense 
and  consciousness,  is  in  certain  respects  variable  and  changeable,  and  in 
others,  as  we  have  formerly  shown,  absolutely  fixed  and  immutable.  Our 
apprehensions  of  the  particular  states  of  these  substances  do  vary,  because 
such  states  vary.  Our  apprehensions  of  the  essential  characteristics  of 
each,  on  the  other  hand,  are,  as  we  have  said,  as  fixed  and  immutable  as 
they  are  of  a  circle  or  a  square.  In  these  respects,  therefore,  we  have  the 
same  grounds  for  affirming  the  validity  of  knowledge  by  sense  and  con- 
sciousness as  by  reason. 

In  developing  his  system  of  being,  he  has  anticipated  Schelling  and 
Hegel  in  announcing  the  fundamental  principle  of  Pantheism,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  of  Pure  Idealism,  on  the  other.  The  form  in  which  this  prin- 
ciple or  assumption  is  announced  in  the  German  schools  is,  ^ Being  and 
knowing  are  one  and  identical.'  As  announced  by  Parmenides,  it  stands 
thus,  'To  be  and  to  know  is  identical,'  or  'Thought  and  being  are  identical.' 
The  final  deduction  from  this  principle,  as  affirmed  in  the  ancient  and 
modern  school,  is  one  and  the  same — namely,  that  *  The  All  is  One,'  or 
that  but  one  substance,  or  principle  of  all  things,  does  exist.  When  this 
deduction  is  stated  in  one  form,  we  have  the  doctrine  of  Pantheism ;  and 
when  in  another,  we  have  that  of  Pure  Idealism.  In  one  or  the  other  of 
these  categories  Parmenides  must  be  located — that  is,  he  must  be  regarded 
as  *  a  spiritualistic  or  idealistic  Pantheist.'  Substituting  that  of  the 
Hindoo  Brahm  for  '  the  One'  of  our  philosopher,  and  we  have  the  Oriental 
formula  in  the  precise  form  announced  in  the  Vedanta  system — to  wit, 
'Brahm  alone  exists;  everything  else  is  illusion.'     Substituting  for  *the 


THE  ELEA  TIC  SCHOOL.  igi 

One'  'tho  Absolute,'  or  'the  All-One/  and  we  have  the  precise  formula 
of  modern  Pantheism — namely,  '  The  self-existent  One  must  be  the  only 
absolute  reality;  all  else  can  be  but  a  developing  of  the  one  original  and 
eternal  being,'  or  '  The  absolute  exists  as  the  only  substance  and  principle 
of  all  things.'  If  the  words,  'Being  and  knowing  are  identical,'  be  under- 
stood in  the  Pure  Idealistic  sense,  then  the  systems  of  Parnienides  and 
Hegel  stand  revealed  as  being  identical  in  fact  and  form,  and  neither 
thinker  has  any  advantage  over  the  other,  with  the  difference  that  for 
ages  the  former  anticipated  the  latter,  while  both  were  anticipated  by 
systems  developed  by  Oriental  thinkers. 

The  Eleatic  Zeno,  the  scholar  and  successor  of  Parmenides,  was  bom 
about  the  year  500  B.o.  With  him  originated  a  logic  of  dialectics,  a 
form  of  argument  much  used  subsequently  by  Socrates  and  Plato — a 
logic  which  develops  the  art  of  establishing  truth  by  a  refutation  of  error 
by  the  redudio  ad  ahsurdum.  Throughout  his  whole  public  career  he  was 
a  fierce  polemic.  Up  to  his  time  various  and  contradictory  systems  had 
been  developed,  with  little  collision  between  them.  Now  one  system  was 
to  be  verified,  and  all  others  refuted.  The  system  to  be  verified  was  that 
of  Parmenides ;  those  to  be  refuted  were  the  Materialistic,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  Theistic,  on  the  other.  The  claims  of  the  last  two  systems 
rested  wholly,  as  the  subject  was  then  understood,  and  as  it  is  now  be- 
ginning to  be  understood,  upon  the  question  of  the  validity  of  the  percep- 
tive faculties.  Materialism  affirming  the  validity  of  perception  in  its 
exterior,  and  denying  it  in  its  interior,  form,  and  Theism  affirming  its 
validity  in  both  forms.  The  position  assumed  was,  that  all  our  world- 
conceptions  of  every  kind  are,  and  must  be,  utterly  void  of  validity,  for 
the  reason  that  they  are  all  in  common  self- contradictory,  and  therefore 
absurd.  He  thus,  professedly,  proved  the  doctrine  of  his  predecessor  of 
the  real  existence  of  '  the  One.'  The  form  of  his  proof  of  the  former,  and 
disproof  of  the  latter  doctrine,  is  thus  given  by  Mr.  Lewes  :  '  There  is 
but  one  being  existing,  necessarily  indivisible,  and  infinite.  To  suppose 
that  the  One  is  divisible,  is  to  suppose  it  finite.  If  divisible,  it  must  be 
infinitely  divisible.' 

There  cannot,  for  example,  be  a  straight  line  in  space  one  inch  long, 
because  such  a  line  is  divisible,  and  infinitely  so.  Who  would  infer  from 
such  an  argument  that  there  can  by  no  possibility  be  such  a  line?  Yet 
we  have  here  a  fair  example  of  the  mo«t  important  contradictions  which 
Zeno  or  Kant  ever  found  in  any  of  our  essential  world-conceptions.  '  But, 
suppose,'  says  Zeno,  'two  things  to  exist,  then  there  must  necessarily  be 
an  interval  between  those  two — something  separating  and  limiting  them. 
What  is  that  something  1  It  is  some  other  thing.  But  then,  if  not  'the 
same  thing,  it  also  must  be  separated  and  limited,  and  so  ad  inJiiiUum. 


192  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Thus  only  one  thing  can  exist  as  the  suhstratum  for  all  manifold  appear- 
ances.' 

By  the  same  argument  we  will  prove,  with  the  same  identical  absolute- 
ness, that  there  can  be  but  one  and  the  same  appearance,  and  that 
appearance  must  be  *  necessarily  indivisible  and  infinite.'  If  the  appear- 
ance is  finite,  it  must  be  divisible,  and  infinitely  so.  But  suppose  two 
appearances  to  exist,  then  there  must  necessarily  be  an  interval  between 
the  two — something  separating  and  limiting.  What  is  this  something? 
It  must  be  some  other  appearance.  But  then,  if  not  the  same  appearance, 
U  also  must  be  separated  and  limited,  and  so  on  ad  infiniivm.  Thus  only 
one  appearance  can  exist  as  the  substratum  for  all  manifold  appearances. 
Is  not  the  reader  now  convinced  that  there  can  by  no  possibility  be  but 
'one  being  existing,'  and  but  one  and  the  same  appearance,  and  that 
both  must  be  in  themselves,  and  both  must  appear  to  be,  *  necessarily  in- 
divisible and  infinite'? 

If  the  first  argument  ia  to  be  regarded  as  valid,  we  may  safely 
challenge  the  world  to  prove  the  invalidity  of  the  second.  Are  not 
appearances,  to  say  the  least,  manifold  and  finite  ?  Why,  then,  may 
there  not  be  just  as  many  manifold  and  diverse  and  finite  realities, 
as  there  actually  are  manifold  and  diverse  finite  appearances  ?  Two 
finite  objects,  we  will  suppose,  exist  in  space  at  a  distance  of  ten  miles 
from  each  other.  What  reality  must  exist  between  them  ?  Space  must 
be,  and  nothing  else  need  be  there.  Separation  does  not  imply  that 
anything  but  empty  space  does  exist  between  the  objects  separated. 
Where  is  there  even  the  appearance  of  contradiction  and  absurdity  here  1 
Nowhere  but  in  the  brain  of  a  bewildered  and  self-sophisticated  philosopher. 

Zeno  and  our  modern  Idealists  would  have  us  believe  that  real  motion 
is  an  absolute  impossibility,  that  is,  that  a  body  at  one  point  can  by  no 
possibility  be  made  to  move  to  any  other  point  in  space.  There  may  be 
apparent,  but  not  real  motion.  The  same  argument  which  would  dis- 
prove the  latter  would  have  equal  validity  in  disproof  of  the  former. 
Take  also  Zeuo's  argument  on  this  point,  as  stated  by  Mr.  Lewes,  '  Motion 
is  impossible,  because  before  that  which  is  in  motion  can  reach  the  end, 
it  must  reach  the  middle  point ;  but  this  middle  point  then  becomes  the 
end,  and  the  same  objection  applies  to  it,  since,  to  reach  it,  the  object  in 
motion  must  traverse  a  middle  point,  and  so  on  ad  infinitum,  seeing  that 
matter  is  infinitely  divisible.'  If  this  argument  is  valid,  must  not  the 
following  have  a  validity  equally  absolute? 

Apparent  motion  is  impossible,  because  before  that  which  appears  to 
move  can  appear  to  reach  the  end,  it  must  appear  to  reach  the  apparent 
middle  point ;  but  this  apparent  middle  point  then  becomes  the  apparent 
end,  and  the  same  objection  applies  to  it,  since  to  appear  to  reach  it  the 
appearance  in  motion  must  appear  to  traverse  an  apparent  middle  point ; 


THE  ELEATIC  SCHOOL.  193 

and  so  en  ad  infinitum,  since  that  appearance  is  intinitely  divisible.  From 
this  time  forward  let  no  apparent  human  being  who  appears  to  himself  to 
be  sitting  upon  an  apparent  railroad,  and  appears  to  see  an  appearance  of 
a  seeming  train  of  cars  appearing  to  be  moving  with  great  rapidity  towards 
him,  have  any  fear.  That  apparent  thing  can  never,  even  in  appearance, 
touch  that  apparent  man ;  for  that  apparent  object  can  never  appear  to 
traverse  the  infinity  of  apparent  points  between  the  self-apparent  man 
and  the  apparent  approaching  object.  Let  no  one  affirm  that  there  is,  or 
ever  has  been  or  can  be,  an  apparent  universe,  or  apparent  men,  or  appa- 
rent accidents  to  apparent  men,  in  the  same.  For  the  same  identical  con- 
tradictions undeniably  exist  in  all  our  ideas  of  appearances  that  can  be 
found  in  those  of  realities.  All  the  contradictions  and  antinomies  of 
pure  reason,  of  Zeno,  and  Spencer,  and  Kant,  absolutely  disprove  the 
non-being  of  what  they  all  admit  to  be  real,  to  wit,  appearances,  or  they 
Lave  no  validity  whatever  anywhere. 

Mr.  Lewes'  Vindication  of  Zero's  Argument. 

'Plato,'  says  Mr.  Lewes,  'has  succinctly  characterized  the  difference 
between  Parmenides  and  Zeno  by  saying  that  the  master  established  the 
existence  of  "  the  One,"  and  the  disciple  proved  the  non-existence  of  the 
many.' 

When  he  (Zeno)  argued  that  there  was  but  one  thing  really  existing, 
all  others  being  only  modifications  or  appearances  of  that  One,  he  did  not 
deny  that  there  were  many  appearances;  he  only  denied  that  those  appear- 
ances were  real  existences.  So,  in  like  manner,  he  denied  motion,  but  not 
the  appearance  of  motion.  Diogenes,  the  cynic,  who,  to  refute  his  argu- 
ment against  motion,  rose  and  walked,  entirely  mistook  the  argument ; 
his  walking  was  no  more  a  refutation  of  Zeno  than  Dr.  Jolinson's  kicking 
a  stone  was  a  refutation  of  Berkeley's  denial  of  matter.  Zeno  would  have 
answered  :  'Very  true,  you  walk  ;  according  to  Opinion  you  are  in  motion ; 
but  according  to  Reason  you  are  at  rest.' 

As  a  question  of  fundamental  importance  in  Philosophy  here  presents 
itself,  we  shall  be  indulged  in  a  full  consideration  of  said  question. 
Appearances  (phenomena)  are  many,  and  they  are  real.  'The  many'  are 
not  and  cannot  be  real,  because  the  idea  of  *  the  many  '  is  self-contra- 
dictory. By  the  same  identical  argument  we  will  prove,  and  have  proven 
already,  that  there  are  not  and  cannot  be  '  many  appearances.'  The 
reason  is  obvious  and  undeniable.  The  same  identical  affirmed  contrac- 
tions which  have  place  in  our  ideas  of  *  the  many  '  realities,  as  we  have 
shown,  appear  with  the  same  obviousness  in  our  ideas  of  '  the  many 
appearances.'  But  appearances,  these  seeming  contradictions,  to  the  con- 
trary, notwithstanding,  are  real.  This  is  admitted  and  affirmed  by  Zeno, 
Lewes,  Kant,  Coleridge,  Spencer,  Mill,  Emerson,  and  Transcendentalists 

X3 


194  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

of  all  schools,  and  denied  by  none.  'The  many,'  therefore,  notwith- 
standing the  same  identical  seeming  contradictions,  are,  or  may  be,  real. 
This  we  must  admit,  or  affirm  that  things  equal  to  the  same  things  are 
not  equal  to  one  another.  It  is,  undeniably,  no  more  self-contradictory 
to  affirm  that  behind  appearances  which  all  admit  and  affirm  to  be  real, 
diverse,  and  manifold,  there  may  exist  a  corresponding  number  of  distinct 
and  separate  realities,  than  there  is  in  the  idea  that  these  diverse,  distinct, 
separate,  and  manifold  appearances  are  the  diverse  and  manifold  mani- 
festations of  one  and  the  same  reality.  If  the  seeming  contradictions,  or 
antinomies,  we  repeat,  demand  that  we  deny  the  existence  of  manifold 
realities,  they  demand  with  the  same  absoluteness  that  we  deny  the 
reality  of  manifold  appearances.  When  we  shall  come  to  consider  Kant's 
'  Antinomies  of  Pure  Reason,'  and  Spencer's  *  Contradictions,'  we  shall 
render  it  demonstrably  evident  that  if  these  'Antinomies'  and  '  Contra- 
dictions '  have  any  validity  whatever  in  disproof  of  the  validity  of  our 
essential  apprehensions  of  mind  and  matter  (noumena),  they  have  the 
same  identical  validity  in  disproof  of  the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of 
appearauces,,or  phenomena.  The  undeniable  consequence  will  be  that 
we  must  deny  absolutely  that  these  seeming  'Antinomies  '  and  '  Contra- 
dictions '  have  any  validity  whatever  in  disproof  of  anything ;  or  we 
must  affirm  not  only  that  mind  and  matter  are  non-realities,  but  that 
neither  they  nor  anything  else  even  appear  to  be  real,  and  that  there  has 
never  been  any  conception  of  them,  as  existing  or  not  existing.  We 
must  deny  the  reality  of  even  thought  itself,  and  the  reality  of  that 
denial.  There  can  be  *  no  thought,  no  being,  none,'  or  these  '  Antinomies ' 
and '  Contradictions  '  are  mere  sophistical  puzzles  which  are  a  disgrace  to 
Philosophy  in  any  age,  and  especially  to  the  philosophic  thought  of  the 
nineteenth  century. 

The  Method  of  this  ScHooik 
The  exclusive  method,  both  of  the  Eleatic  and  Pythagorean  school, 
is  the  Oriental  or  h  priori  one.  Both,  in  common,  recognized  but  two 
primary  intellectual  faculties — Sense  and  Reason.  The  validity  of  the 
former,  for  facts,  was  wholly  denied.  Reason  only  remained  as  the  exclu- 
sive organ  of  Philosophy,  Reason,  through  which,  in  imagination,  they 
obtained  a  direct,  immediate,  and  absolute  (I  priori  insight,  or  knowledge, 
of  real  being  and  its  laws.  Nothing  real  was  revealed  through  perception. 
All  its  revelations  were  appearances,  or  illusions.  Reason,  looking  off  into 
infinite  space,  and  away  from  all  phenomena,  or  manifestations  of  exist- 
ence, directly  and  immediately  perceived  the  Absolute,  and  affirmed  the 
real,  the  necessary,  and  exclusive  existence  of  '  the  One.'  As  long  as 
this  idea  of  the  sphere  of  Reason  is  admitted  to  be  valid,  Philosophy 
will,  of  necessity,  be  a  chaos.     The  forms  of  the  Absolute,  or  '  the  One,' 


THE  ELEA  TIC  SCHOOL.  195 

thus  apprehended,  will  be  almost  as  diverse,  and  manifold,  and  contra- 
dictory, as  the  appearances  of  *the  One'  are  now,  even  by  Idealists, 
admitted  to  bei 

The  Physical  School  of  Elba, 

The  metaphysical  speculations  of  Parraeiiides  and  Zeno  were  not  long 
in  producing  their  natural  results  in  the  same  locality.  When  metaphy- 
sicians, dwelling  in  the  sphere  of  pure  thought,  deny  the  validity  of 
Sense,  and  through  affirmed  insight  of  Reason,  resolve  all  being  into 
spirit,  thinkers  whose  speculations  refer  mainly  '  to  things  without  us ' 
will  naturally  distrust  the  validity  of  subjective  knowledge,  and  especially 
of  that  affirmed  to  have  been  obtained  through  the  insight  of  a  faculty 
of  the  existence  of  which  no  one  is  conscious,  and  whose  revelations  exist 
nowhere  but  in  the  brains  of  certain  wild  and  lawless  speculators.  Deny- 
ing the  validity  of  Reason,  and  an  affirmation  of  that  of  Sense,  was  a 
short,  and  easy,  and  not  unnatural  passage  from  'the  One'  to  *  th« 
Many,'  that  is,  from  the  ultimate  deduction  of  Idealism  to  that  of 
Materialism.  This  passage  may  also  be  made  on  purely  h  priori  grounds. 
To  Reason  itself,  assuming  the  existence  of  such  a  faculty,  there  is  as 
valid  ground  for  the  assumption  that  matter  only  is  real  as  there  is,  or 
can  be,  for  the  assumption  that  spirit  alone  exists,  and  that  spirit  '  the 
^One.'  Appearances  which  are  multitudinous,  and  of  an  infinite  diversity 
of  forms,  may  on  d  priori  grounds  be  as  reasonably  assumed  to  be  mani- 
festations of  '  the  Many,'  as  of  '  the  One.'  This  passage  from  *  the  One  ' 
to  '  the  Many,'  or  from  the  ultimate  deduction  of  Idealism  to  that  of 
Materialism,  was  made  by  two  physicians  of  Elea,  Leucippus  (500-400  ac), 
whose  birthplace  is  uncertain,  and  by  his  disciple  Democritus  of  Abdera 
(460-357  B.C.).  The  latter  is  said  to  have  visited  Egypt,  Ethiopia,  Persia, 
and  to  have  communicated  with  the  Dj.iinas  of  India.  The  accordance 
of  the  teachings  of  these  philosophers  with  that  of  their  Indian  prede- 
cessors referred  to  render  it  altogether  probable  that  their  system  haii  an 
Oriental  derivation.  As  these  philosophers  fully  agreed  in  the  doctrine, 
we  shall  speak  of  their  system  as  their  joiiit  production.  As  they,  tirst 
of  Grecian  thinkers,  gave  being  and  form  to  the  system  of  Materialism 
afterwartls  perfected  by  Epicurus,  and  which  with  slight  modifications 
has  passed  down  through  all  subsequent  ages  to  the  present  time,  w« 
shall  be  at  special  pains,  not  only  to  present  the  system  as  it  came  from 
these  authors,  but  in  some  of  its  important  relations  to  other  systems  ot' 
the  same  class,  systems  previously  aiid  subsequently  developed. 

Exposition  of  the  System  of  these  Philosophers. 

For  'the  one'  of  Parmenides  and  Zeno  they  substituted  'the  many,* 
and  for  the  one  spiritualistic  or  idealistic  form  of  being  affirmed  by  the 

13-2 


196  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

former,  they  affirmed  an  infinite  number  of  material  atoms.  Their 
formula  of  being  may,  in  their  own  words,  be  thus  stated  :  '  Atoms  and 
space  alone  exist,'  or  '  Atoms  and  vacuum  (space)  were  the  beginnings  of 
all  things.'  The  cause  of  organization  and  all  attending  phenomena  is 
motion,  which  is  represented  by  the  word  necessity.  Speaking  of  Derao- 
critus,  Diogenes  Lactantius  says :  *  Motion,  which  is  the  cause  of  the  pro- 
duction of  everything,  he  calls  necessity.  Atoms  they  hold  to  be  not 
only  infinite  in  number,  but  to  be  possessed  of  an  equal  diversity  of 
forms.  Here  they  agree  with  Kanada,  and  differ  from  the  Djainas  and 
other  materialistic  schools  of  India,  as  well  as  from  the  materialistic 
doctrine  of  Anaxagoras.  Atoms  differed,  they  taught,  as  Aristotle 
informs  us,  *  in  the  three  particulars  of  shape,  order,  and  position,'  and 
these  differences,  they  held,  are  sufficient  to  explain  all  diversities  of 
phenomena.  Atoms  also  differ  in  size  and  weight,  their  weight  being  as 
their  size.  Originally  all  atoms  existed  separately  in  infinite  space.  If 
there  was  no  space  between,  motion  and,  consequently,  organization  would 
be  impossible. 

Such  being  the  original  state  of  all  material  substances,  the  question 
arises — to  wit,  how  shall  all  the  changes  and  movements  which  w^e 
witness  be  accounted  for?  Why  do  atoms  enter  into  their  endlessly 
diversified  combinations  and  bring  forth  the  organic  and  inorganic  forms 
which  the  world  and  universe  present  1  The  following  is  the  account 
which  Leucippus  gives  of  the  origin  and  cause  of  these  wonders  :  '  Many 
bodies  of  various  kinds  and  shape  are  borne  by  amputation  from  the 
infinite'  (atoms  being  infinite  in  number  and  then  in  a  chaotic  state)  '  into 
a  vast  vacuum'  (how  thus  borne  we  are  not  informed),  'and  then  they, 
being  collected  together'  (how  collected  is  left  unexplained),  '  produce  a 
vortex,  according  to  which  they,  dashing  against  each  other  and  whirling 
about  in  every  direction,  are  separated  in  such  a  way  that  like  attaches 
itself  to  like ;  bodies  are  thus,  without  ceasing,  united  according  to  the 
impulse  given  by  the  vortex,  and  in  this  way  the  earth  was  formed.' 

Democritus  affirmed,  not  only  that  atoms  eternally  exist,  but  also 
eternally  and  necessarily  in  a  state  of  motion.  This  motion  was  in 
straight  lines  downward  (just  as  if  there  is  any  down  or  up  in  infinite 
space).  In  their  descent  the  motion  of  the  larger  and  more  heavy  bodies 
•  being  more  rapid  than  the  rest,  collisions  occurred,  and  the  smaller  bodies 
secured  a  lateral  and  upward  motion.  Thus  a  rotary  motion  was  generated, 
and  as  this  extended  farther  and  farther  the  vortex  was  produced,  which 
occasioned,  in  accordance  with  the  principle  of  Leucippus,  the  formation 
of  worlds.  When  the  earth,  which  was  at  first  in  motion,  came  to  a  state 
of  rest  (the  Copernican  system  was  then  unknown)  by  spontaneous 
generation,  organized  beings  arose  from  the  moist  earth,  and  thus  our 
■world  became  filled  with  vitalized  forms  of  existence. 


THE  ELEATIC  SCHOOL.  197 


Man  has  a  material  body  and  a  material  soul,  the  former  being  composed 
of  the  grosser,  and  the  latter  of  the  finer,  the  round,  smooth,  and  fiery 
atoms.  The  psychology  of  these  philosophers  has  certain  noticeable 
peculiarities.  To  sensation  or  perception,  they  added  not  reason,  but 
the  faculty  of  reflection.  This  last-named  faculty  has  a  sphere,  according 
to  these  philosophers,  analogous  to,  if  not  identical  with,  that  assigned  to 
reason  in  the  metaphysical  school.  Atoms  are  not  perceived  but  appre- 
hended by  reflection,  as  implied  by  the  aggregates  which  are  perceived. 

Neither  do  we  have  any  direct  and  immediate  perception  or  knowledge 
of  any  forms  of  existence  around  us.  Hence  Democritus  has  been  under- 
stood by  some  as  denying  wholly  the  validity  of  our  world-knowledge. 
All  that  he  can  be  shown  to  have  meant  is  that  pur  knowledge,  being  not 
direct  and  immediate,  was  therefore,  though  real,  not  full  and  perfect. 
Perception  he  thus  accounts  for.  From  all  organized  forms  of  being 
there  are  constantly  sent  o£f  images — ideas  he  sometimes  calls  them — of 
said  form&  Thus  images  which  can  but  imperfectly  represent  the  forms 
from  which  the  former  proceed  enter  the  body  through  the  eye  and 
other  senses,  and  become  present  to  the  soul  as  objects  of  perception. 
Here  we  have  the  origin  of  the  doctrine  of  exclusively  representative 
knowledge  of  nature — a  doctrine  -which  has  had  a  most  controlling 
influence  in  the  sphere  of  philosophic  thought,  from  the  era  of  Democritus 
to  the  present  time.  The  moral  teachings  of  these  philosophers  accord 
with  their  material  principles.  As  there  is  nothing  but  perception  in 
man,  and  nothing  but  atoms  in  the  universe,  there  can  be  no  place  for  an 
absolute  law  of  right  and  wrong  or  duty.  AH  must  be  a  simple  calcula- 
tion, through  the  faculty  of  reflection,  of  prudence. 

The  highest  good  is  happiness,  and  this  is  attained  by  avoiding 
extremes,  and  keeping  within  limits  tixed  by  nature.  Such  is  the 
system  of  Materialism,  as  first  developed  within  the  sphere  of  Grecian 
thought.  We  close  our  notice  of  these  two  philosophers  with  a  few 
general  reflections  upon  their  system. 

General  Reflections  upon  this  System. 
1.  We  have  in  our  examination  of  this,  and  of  systems  before,  noticed 
a  striking  illustration  and  example  of  wliat  may  be  denominated  the 
element  of  perfection  which  characterizes  Grecian  thought.  The  actual 
forms  of  Grecian  architecture,  statuary,  and  painting,  have  remained 
fixed  ideals  for  all  future  generations.  The  same  holds  equally  of  their 
philosophical  system.  The  system  may  be  false  or  true.  But  each  of 
its  kind  takes  from  the  first  a  nearly,  or  quite,  perfected  form.  The 
Theism  of  Anaxagoras,  the  Pure  Idealism  of  Pythagoras,  the  Ideal  Pan- 
theism of  Parmenides  and  Zeno,  and  the  Materialism  of  Lf*ncippns  and 
Democritus,  are  the  ideals  from  which  systems  of  the  dame  kind  have 


A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


since,  in  all  essential  particulars,  taken  form.  It  is  only  in  non-essential 
details  that  the  modern  or  any  intermediate  atomic  theory  ditfers  from 
that  which  we  have  first  considered.  'The  modern  atomic  theory,'  says 
Mr.  Lewes,  'is  the  law  of  definite  proportions;  the  ancient  theory  is 
merely  the  affirmation  of  indefinite  comhinations.'  Here  is  an  essential 
error  in  regard  to  hoth  theories.  Each  theory  in  common  holds  the 
doctrine  of  definite  combinations.  The  first  holds  to  combinations  in 
accordance  with  *  the  law  of  definite  proportion,'  and  the  latter  in 
accordance  with  a  law  acting  from  necessity,  and  which,  by  necessary 
consequence,  must  act  in  accordance  with  '  the  law  of  definite  propor- 
tions.' Thus  we  have  a  mere  difi"erence  of  statements,  and  not,  as  Mr. 
Lewes  would  have  us  understand,  of  essential  principles. 

2.  We  notice,  also,  a  fundamental  difficulty  which  the  doctrine  of 
Materialism  encountered  as  soon  as  it  was  subjected  to  the  searching 
scrutiny  of  Grecian  thought.  The  fundamental  principles  and  starting- 
point  of  the  system  in  all  its  forms  was  a  primal  chaos  of  material 
forms  or  atoms,  atoms  eternally  existing  under  an  immutable  law  of 
order  and  universal  organization  as  an  event  of  time. 

Both  these  conditions  were  distinctly  present,  and  that  from  the  first, 
to  Grecian  thought  The  problem  presented  was  this  :  How  can  organi- 
zation, as  an  event  of  time,  be  deduced  from  a  primal  chaos  of  eternally 
existing  atoms  under  the  control  of  an  eternally  acting  law  of  order  1  It 
was  at  once  perceived,  that  if,  in  this  primal  chaos,  these  atoms  were  at 
rest,  the  beginning  of  motion  could  not  be  accounted  for.  Motion  was, 
therefore,  assumed  as  an  eternal  and  necessary  condition  of  aU  material 
elements,  and  as  the  cause  of  law  and  order,  and  universal  organization. 
Thus  was  Descartes  anticipated  in  his  memorable  utterance,  *  Give  me 
matter  and  motion,  and  I  will  organize  the  universe,*  that  is,  explain  the 
fact  of  its  organization.  Grecian  thinkers  assumed  both  as  eternally 
existing  facts.  Motion  being  given  as  the  law  and  cause  of  organization, 
what  must  be  its  eternal  form  to  account  for  organization  as  an  event  uf 
time  1  This  was  the  problem.  The  first  assumption  was  the  idea  of  an 
infinity  of  atoms  eternally  moving  in  parallel  lines.  To  this,  it  was 
soon  replied  that  in  such  case  the  atoms  would  never  meet,  and  organiza- 
tion could  never  occur.  To  avoid  this  difficulty,  Democritus  assumed 
the  eternally  downward  movement  of  atoms  in  such  lines,  and  also  that 
in  consequence  of  the  more  rapid  movement  of  the  larger  and  heavier 
"bodies,  a  final  collision  would  occur,  and  hence  organization.  To  this,  it 
was  replied  that  as  this  more  rapid  movement  was  from  eternity,  the 
collision  of  atoms  and  consequent  organization  must  have  been  from 
eternity,  and  not  an  event  of  time.  In  this  desperate  state  of  the 
problem,  Epicurus  took  it  up.  He  assumed  the  eternal  existence  of  an 
infinity  of  homogeneous  atoms,  eternally  moving  in  converging  lines.    To 


THE  ELF  A  TIC  SCHOOL.  199 

this  it  was  replied  that  in  such  case,  the  concussion  of  atoms,  and  conse- 
quent organization,  must  have  been  from  eternity,  and  could  not  have 
occurred  in  time.  To  avoid  this  fatal  rock,  the  Epicurean  physists,  as  we 
shall  see  hereafter,  assumed  the  original  motion  of  matter  in  straight 
lines,  and  their  subsequent  diversion  and  concussion  by  a  spontaneous 
activity  of  the  particles.  Here  the  question  arose.  How  can  particles, 
moving  under  a  necessary  law  of  motion,  spontaneously  change  the 
direction  of  motion  in  opposition  to  that  law  1  Such,  however,  wsis  the 
assumption,  an  assumption  in  which  Mr.  Huxley  finds  himself  antici- 
pated by  a  Grecian  thinker  who  lived  several  centuries  prior  to  the 
Christian  era.  Mr.  Huxley  finding  that  the  theory  of  Mr.  Darwin  could 
not  be  defended  at  all,  if  the  validity  of  the  axiom  affirmed  as  true  by  Mr. 
Darwin  himself  be  admitted,  namely,  that  *  nature  does  nothing  persaltum* 
denies  the  principle,  affirming  that  nature  does  sometimes  act  by  'fits 
and  starts.'  In  one  of  these  periods  of  convulsion,  a  monkey  begat 
a  man.  The  Greek  mind — whether  from  greater  or  less  respect  for  science 
than  appears  among  certain  modern  scientists,  we  will  not  now  say — the 
Greek  mind,  we  say,  regarded  the  idea  that  the  organization  of  the 
universe  was  occasioned  by  a  spontaneous  change  from  the  line  on  which 
atoms  had,  under  a  necessary  law,  been  moving  for  a  whole  past  eternity, 
as 'equivalent  to  an  event  without  a  cause.  Such  an  hypothesis  was 
accordingly  rejected,  and  Materialism  found  itself  once  more  ttranded 
upon  a  fatal  rock. 

As  a  last  resort,  the  doctrine  of  free-will  was  affirmed,  as  a  universal 
property  of  matter  itself.  Man  is  a  material  agent,  and  yet  he  is  con- 
sciously free.  The  power  to  change  its  movements  from  one  direction  to 
another,  and  this  from  the  action  of  no  cause  ab  extra^  inheres,  as  a  fixed 
property  in  all  atoms.  By  a  volutionary  deflection  from  straight  lines 
'  the  atoms  strike  against  each  other,  and  by  the  concussion  new  move- 
ments arise.'  Thus  was  occasioned  the  organization  of  the  universe.  We 
shall  make  larger  extracts  to  the  same  point  when  we  come  to  a  direct 
examination  of  the  system  of  Epicurus.  The  great  problem  forced  upon 
Materialists  by  the  exigences  of  their  system,  the  problem  which  must  be 
fully  solved,  or  the  system  itself  suffer  a  hopeless  shipwreck,  was  left 
unsolved  by  Grecian  and  mediaeval  thought,  and  in  that  state  has  been 
handed  down  to  modern  advocates  of  the  system.  The  problem  is  this, 
matter  being  given"  in  a  state  of  perfect  chaos,  and  acted  upon  by  no 
cause  but  its  own  eternally  inhering  laws,  to  deduce  exclusively  from 
such  premises  the  universe  as  it  if>,  and  the  origination  of  that  universe 
as  an  event  of  time.  Modern  materialists  have,  in  their  manner  of  treat 
ing  the  subject,  admitted  their  own  necessary  problem  to  be  absolutely 
insolvable,  as  it  uudeuiably  is.  They  argue  as  boldly  and  fiercely  for 
Materialism  as  Kanada,  Democritus,  or  Epicurus  ever  did.     £ut  wlieii 


200  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

pressed  with  their  own  necessary  problem,  they  all  in  conuiion  dodge 
the  issue  by  affirming  an  absolute  ignorance  of  the  subject  matter  about 
which  they  are  arguing.  *It  is  certain,'  they  unitedly  affirm,  'that  we 
can  have  no  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  either  matter  or  spirit.'  Why, 
then,  press  upon  us  your  Materialism  %  Here  is  the  hopeless  limbo  into 
which  this  bald  system  has  now  fallen. 

3.  We  now  perceive  the  fundamental  advantage  which  Materialism 
has  in  its  controversy  with  Idealism.  Take  away  Reason  as  defined  by 
Idealists  of  all  schools,  ancient  or  modern,  and  their  system  is  absolutely 
baseless.  As  they  themselves  have  defined  the  term.  Reason  is  repre- 
sented as  a  faculty  which  acts  independently  of  all  others,  and  perceives 
no  reality  whatever  through  phenomena,  but  having  affirmed  all  forms  of 
perception  to  be  illusory,  looks  off  into  infinite  space,  and  by  direct 
d  priori  insight,  apprehends  absolute  and  eternal  truth.  Now,  no  man 
living  or  dead  ever  did  adduce,  or  can  adduce,  the  remotest  evidence  that 
any  such  faculty  exists.  No  man  is  consciously  possessed  of  such  a 
faculty.  The  multitudinous  and  contradictory  forms  of  absolute  truth, 
forms  obtained  through  this  affirmed  insight,  render  demonstrably  evident 
the  fact  that  this  boasted  faculty  is  nothing  but  a  fiction  of  false  science. 
Besides,  the  affirmed  h  priori  visions  of  the  Materialists  have  all  the 
marks  of  credibility  that  those  of  Idealists  do  or  can  possess.  We  un- 
deniably have  just  as  good  ground  for  affirming  the  reality  of  *  the  Many ' 
as  we  have  for  affirming  that  of  '  the  One.' 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Materialist  bases  the  claims  of  his  system  upon 
the  revelations  of  a  faculty,  sense-perception,  of  the  existence  of  which  all 
men  are  absolutely  conscious,  and  in  whose  validity  they  as  absolutely 
confide.  When  the  election,  then,  is  between  Materialism  and  Idealism, 
with  gbod  reason  the  former  will  command  popular  favour. 

4.  We  have,  in  our  examination  of  these  Grecian  systems  of  Materialism 
and  Idealism,  another  illustration  of  the  validity  of  a  statement  formerly 
made,  to  wit,  that  all  these  systems  are  built,  not  only  upon  mere  assump- 
tions, but  upon  assumptions  all  of  which  have  the  vicious  characteristic 
of  begging  the  question  at  issue.  Had  Democritus  or  Epicurus,  for 
example,  been  asked  for  the  reasons  why  they  affirmed  the  existence  of 
atoms  of  homogeneous  or  heterogeneous  character,  why  they  affirmed 
them  to  be  identical  or  diverse  in  size,  weight,  and  form,  why  they  attri- 
bute to  them  such  contradictory  kinds  of  motion,  and  why,  at  one  time, 
they  affirmed  them  to  be  under  the  law  of  necessity,  and  at  another  as 
possessed  of  free-will,  but  one  answer  could  be  given,  to  wit,  their 
assumptions  were  always  determined,  not  by  facts,  but  by  the  exigencies 
of  their  system.  This  holds  "true  of  the  method  of  all  the  advocates  of 
all  such  systems,  in  all  ages  and  in  all  forms.  We  look  in  vain  into  such 
systems  for  anything  in  the  form  of  induction  proper.     Whenever  an 


THE  INTERMEDIATE  SCHOOL.  aoi 

exigency  arises,  a  new  form  of  absolute  truth  is  presented,  not  because 
it  is  demanded  by  facts,  but  by  the  exigenciea  of  an  hypothesis.  All 
issues  are  begged,  and  nothing  proven. 


SECTION  IV. 
THE  INTERMEDIATE  SCHOOL* 

Heraclitus  and  Empedocles. 
Wb  notice  these  two  individuals  together,  and  rank  them  as  belonging  to 
a  common  school,  not  because  they  fully  agree  in  their  teachings,  or 
taught  in  the  same  place,  but  because  they  were  each  of  them,  in  import" 
ant  senses,  eclectics,  taking  their  positions  intermediately  between  oppos- 
ing systems,  and.  attempting  to  reconcile  or  to  develop  the  truth  out  of 
their  differences.  Of  the  system  of  Heraclitus,  who  was  born  at  Ephesus, 
and  flourished  about  the  years  500 — 420  B.C.,  little  that  is  intelligible 
can  be  said,  because  his  contemporaries  could  not  fully  understand  his 
writings,  he  being  called  '  the  obscure,'  and  but  a  few  fragments  of  these 
have  come  down  to  us.  Of  the  book  of  this  thinker  Socrates  said  that 
•  what  he  understood  of  it  was  excellent,  and  he  had  no  doubt  that  what 
he  did  not  understand  was  equally  good  ;  but  the  book  requires  an  expert 
swimmer.'  We  shall,  therefore,  attempt  nothing  more  than  to  present  a 
few  Dbvious  features  of  his  system,  if  he  had  any  fully  developed  system, 
features  which  may  be  of  interest  to  the  inquirer  after  truth. 

In  one  of  his  utterances  he  gave  a  criterion  of  valid  knowledge — a 
criterion  by  which,  with  absolute  certainty,  all  forms  of  such  knowledge 
may  be  distinguished  and  separated  from  all  mere  assumptions,  opinions, 
and  beliefs  which  are  of  no  certain  validity.  In  this  particular  he  takes 
just  rank  as  a  foremost  thinker  of  the  race,  no  one  before  him  having 
attempted  to  give  such  a  criterion.  *  Universal  and  divine  reason,'  he 
says,  *  is  the  criterion  of  truth.  That  which  is  universally  believed  is 
certain,  for  it  is  borrowed  from  that  common  reason  which  is  universal 
and  divine  j  and,  on  the  contrary,  every  individual  opinion  is  destitute 
of  certainty,  this  common  reason  being  nothing  but  the  picture  of  the 
universe.  Whenever  we  derive  anything  from  it,  we  possess  the  truth  ; 
and  when  we  interrogate  only  our  own  individual  understanding,  we  fall 
into  error.'  Had  mankind  accepted  of  this  criterion  and  strictly  adhered 
to  it,  the  chaos  of  ages  would  long  since  have  passed  away,  and  order 
and  harmony  and  unity  would  be  as  absolute  in  the  sphere  of  philosophic 
thought  and  inquiry  as  they  are  in  the  system  of  external  nature.  As  is 
too  commonly  the  case,  however,  the  thinker  who  first  announced  the 
principle  was  among  the  first  to  depart  from  it. 


202  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

In  his  physics  fire,  not  as  liarae,  but  a  boundless  ether,  is  assumed  to 
be  the  substance  and  principle  of  all  things.  'The  world,'  he  says,  'was 
neither  made  by  the  gods  nor  men,  and  it  was  and  is  and  ever  shall  be 
an  ever-living  fire,  in  due  proportion  self-enkindled,  and  in  due  measure 
self-extinguished.'  Here,  undeniably,  we  have  what  is  not  '  universally 
believed ;'  and  have  consequently,  by  our  philosopher's  own  *  criterion  of 
truth,'  '  a  picture  of  the  order  of  the  universe,'  which  is  not  true.  The 
same  holds  in  respect  to  his  doctrine  of  '  becoming '  a  peculiar  doctrine, 
first  announced,  we  believe,  by  Heraclitus,  and  which  subsequently  had 
Dot  a  little  influence  with  leading  thinkers.  Permenides  had  aifirmed 
that  there  is  and  can  be  no  intermediate  form  of  being  between  existence 
and  non-existence,  '  the  ens  and  the  non-ens.'  Heraclitus  held  to  '  a 
becoming '  in  which  '  things  are  and  also  are  not.'  The  ethereal  fire  was 
in  a  continual  flux,  an  eternal  flow  in  which  there  was  a  perpetual  forma- 
tion and  transformation,  and  continuance  was  not  real,  but  only  an 
appearance.  '  Into  this  same  stream,'  he  says,  *  we  descend,  and  at  the 
same  time  we  do  not  descend ;  we  are,  and  also  we  are  not.'  *  Unite,' 
he  says  again,  *  the  whole  and  the  not-whole,  the  coalescing  and  the  not- 
coalescing,  the  harmonious  and  the  discordant,  and  thus  we  have  the  one 
becoming  from  the  all,  and  the  all  from  the  one.'  Ever  since  the  days  of 
Heraclitus,  philosophers  of  certain  schools  have  been  eugaged  in  a  vain 
endeavour  to  catch  this  no-thing  which  stands  intermediate  between  the 
real  and  the  not-real,  and  to  represent  this  becoming  which  never 
becomes  as  the  real  universe.  Either  the  absolute  '  criterion  of  truth ' 
before  us  is  false,  however,  or  this  doctrine  of,  at  the  same  time,  being 
and  not  being,  is  an  error. 

This  fiery  ether,  according  to  Heraclitus,  has  spiritual  attraction,  of 
which  intelligence  is  one.  '  Inhaling,'  he  says,  '  through  the  breath 
of  the  universal  ether,  which  is  divine  reason,  we  become  conscious.' 
Heraclitus  therefore,  like  Anaximander,  must  be  regarded  as  a  kind  of 
Materialistic  Pantheist,  both  thinkers  having  apparently  engaged  in  the 
vain  attempt,  as  intermediators  between  Materialism  and  Idealism,  to 
materialize  spirit  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  spiritualize  matter  on  the 
other.  It  was  against  this  doctrine  of  a  becoming  which  never  becomes 
that  Anaxagoras  arrayed  himself  in  his  teachings  in  Athens. 

Empedocles,  of  Agrigentum,  in  Sicily,  and  who  was  born  about  fifty 
years  later  than  Heraclitus,  held  but  few  principles  in  common  with,  and 
strongly  combatted  others  of  his  predecessor.  Empedocles,  as  we  have 
shown,  and  that  unlike  his  predecessor,  held  the  doctrine  of  one  supreme 
God,  who  is  distinct  from  nature,  and  '  ruleth  all  things  by  reason  and 
will'  *  All  things  that  are  upon  the  earth  and  in  the  air  and  water  may,' 
he  says,  *  be  truly  called  the  works  of  God.'  We  might  make  other 
citatioas  to  the  same  effect,  but  these  are  fully  sufEcient  to  verify  for 


THE  SOPHISTS.  203 


their  author  a  right  to  a  place  among  true  Theista  When  contemplating 
his  doctrine  of  cosmology,  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  he  never  refers  to 
organization  by  mere  natural  lawsy  but  as  occurring  under  divine  control. 
While  Aristotle  censures  Anaxagoras  for  not  referring  to  his  first  cause, 
Intelligence,  but  upon  emergencies,  he  says,  that  'Empedocles  employs 
this  more  abundantly,  though  not  sufficiently.'  This  shows  that  God 
was  ever  present  to  his  mind  as  the  first  and  all-controlling  cause,  to 
whom  frequent  and  ppecific  reference  was  had,  as  facts  rendered  such 
reference  necessary.  In  opposition  to  Heraclitus,  and  in  accordance  with 
the  principles  of  Parmonides  and  Anaxagoras,  he  denied  the  doctrine  of 
'  becoming,'  and  affirmed  with  the  latter  that  existing  elements  may  be 
mixed  and  separated,  but  never  destroyed. 

The  Ionian  philosophers  had  reckoned  but  three  original  material 
elements,  earth,  air,  and  water.  To  tliese  Empedocles  added  a  fourth, 
fire.  Ey  the  ancients  he  is  regarded  as  the  author  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
four  named  primal  material  elemeuta. 


SECTION  V. 

THE    SOPHISTS. 

In  their  attempts  to  explain  everything,  the  various  schools  of  Greece  had 
left  almost  everything  unexplained.  The  system  which  one  school  had 
set  up  another  had  demolished,  while  that  of  the  latter  had  fallen  to 
pieces  under  the  heavy  blows  of  its  antagonists.  Nothing  appeared  of 
which  any  man  could  say,  '  See,  this  is  true.'  Hence  a  general  or  widely 
diffused  sentiment  obtained  in  the  popular  mind  that  real  knowledge  on 
any  subject  was  impossible.  Hence,  also,  a  new  class  of  thinkers  arose, 
a  class  essentially  diverse  from  any  which  before  had  entered  the  sphere 
of  scientific  thought.  Oriental  thinkers,  and  Grecian,  too,  up  to  that 
time,  had  all  been  positivists.  In  all  schools  in  Philosophy,  absolute 
truth,  in  some  form,  had  been  professedly  obtained.  Now,  nothing 
seemed  to  have  a  real  scientific  basis  but  universal  doubt,  a  sentiment 
thus  announced  by  Metrodorus,  of  Chios,  a  disciple  of  Democritus,  to 
wit,  '  I  do  not  even  know  that  I  know  nothing.*  The  advocates  of  this 
doctrine  of  universal  and  absolute  nescience  assumed  the  favoured 
cognomen  of  Sophists,  or  wise  men.  So  we  have  been  informed  by  a 
modern  thinker  of  the  same  school  that  himself  and  fellow-thinkers  have 
attained  to  a  knowledge  of  the  fact  that  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  '  have 
any  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  matter  or  spirit,'  and  that  all  inquiries 
pertaining  to  religion  and  God,  and  the  soul's  eternity,  are  as  foreign  to 
the  proper  sphere  of  human  thought  and  inquiry,  as  'lunar  politics,' 


204  ^  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

that  to  all  this  utter  aud  hopeless  nescience  himself  and  associates  have 
attained  *  by  their  wisdom.' 

Common  Doctrine  of  the  Sophists, 

The  doctrine  common  to  Sophists  of  all  classes  was  the  absolute  impos- 
sibility of  a  real  knowledge  of  any  form  of  existence,  if  any  reality  does 
exist.  Hence,  all  in  common,  while  they  denied  the  validity  of  positive 
system  in  all  their  forms,  refrained  from  propounding  any  such  system  as 
their  own. 

'  The  first  and  wisest  of  them  all  professed 
To  know  this  only,  that  he  nothing  knew.* 

The  manner  in  which  this  doctrine  of  absolute  and  necessary  nescience 
of  all  truths  was  assaulted  by  certain  thoughtful  Greeks  presents  a 
striking  illustration  of  the  subtlety  of  the  Grecian  mind.  You  affirm, 
was  the  substance  of  their  reply  to  the  Sophist,  that  a  knowledge  of  truth 
in  any  form  is  impossible  to  man.  You  either  do,  or  do  not,  know  your 
own  doctrine  to  be  true,  that  is,  you  know,  or  do  not  knovv,  that  you  doubt 
the  possibility  of  knowing  truth  in  any  form  If  you  know  that  you 
thus  doubt  all  things,  something  is  known  as  it  is  in  itself,  and  your 
doctrine  is  false.  If  you  do  not  thus  doubt,  you  have  no  ground  what- 
ever for  affirming  your  doctrine  to  be  true.  In  either  case,  we  are  bound 
to  discredit  your  teachings.  This  argument  has  confronted  Scepticism 
from  that  time  to  the  present,  and  has  never  yet,  even  in  pretence,  been 
replied  to.  Yet  that  argument  must  be  fully  met,  or  we  subject  ourselves 
to  the  just  charge  of  intinite  folly  and  presumption  if,  for  a  moment,  we 
accept  the  doctrine  of  universal  nescience  as  true.  The  only  reply  to  the 
argument  ever  attempted  was  that  of  Mctrodorus  recorded  above.  He 
fancied  that  he  had  placed  the  elements  of  doubt  so  far  back,  that  nothing 
positive  could  be  detected  in  it.  The  positive  affirmation,  to  wit,  '  I  don't 
know,'  appeared  as  before.  It  is  absolutely  impossible  for  the  mind  to 
take  the  first  step  in  the  direction  of  sceptical  thought  without  perpetrat- 
ing a  palpable  self-contradiction.  The  simple  fact,  which  cannot  be 
ilenied,  that  we  can  know  one  reality  as  it  is  in  itself,  to  wit,  our  own 
doubt,  implies  the  fact  that  we  may  know  other  realities  as  they  are  in 
themselves.  The  fact  that  doubt  is  known  to  be  real,  and  is  known  as  it 
is  in  jtself,  implies  that  the  Intelligence  is  relatively  to  this  fact  a  power, 
and  that  it  is  to  the  Intelligence  an  object  of  valid  knowledge.  On  the 
same  conditions,  other  realities  may  be  to  this  same  Intelligence  objects 
of  real  valid  knowledge.  The  question  whether  doubt,  or  any  other 
reality,  is  to  the  Intelligence  such  an  object,  is  a  pure  question  of  selt- 
consciousness.  "We  know  that  we  know  doubt,  because  we  are  conscious 
of  knowing  it.  If  we  have  a  consciousness  of  similar  absoluteness  of  any 
other  form  of  knowledge,  whatever  its  object  may  be,  we  must  admit 


THE  SOPHISTS.  205 


the  strict  validity  of  such  knowledge,  or  displace  ourselves  from  the 
sphere  of  valid  science 

The  Method  of  the  Sophist. 

In  their  general  method  of  induction  and  deduction,  there  was  an 
agreement  strictly  universal  among  the  Sophists.  Materialism  had  pro- 
fessedly demonstrated  the  absolute  invalidity  of  all  affirmed  knowjedj^e 
of  spirit,  whether  through  Consciousness  or  Eeason.  Idealism  had  pro 
fessedly  done  the  same  thing  in  respect  to  all  professed  knowledge  of 
material  substances.  The  Sophist  accepted  the  validity  of  this  impeach 
ment  of  the  Intelligence  as  a  faculty  of  knowledge  in  respect  to  mattt-r 
and  spirit  both.  To  the  Materialist  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Idealist 
on  the  other,  they  replied,  You  are  both  right,  and  both  wrong.  You 
are,  each  of  you,  right  in  the  form  in  which  you  have  impeached  the 
Intelligence  as  a  faculty  of  knowledge.  Each  of  you  have  demonstrated 
his  antagonist  to  be  wrong  in  respect  to  the  forms  of  valid  knowledge  of 
which  each  of  you  affirms  himself  possessed.  The  Sophist  presented  no 
form  of  proof  or  disproof  of  his  own  theory.  He  simply,  through  the 
mutually  destructive  arguments  of  positivists,  each  against  the  system 
of  his  antagonist,  rendered  it  demonstrably  evident,  the  validity  of  said 
arguments  being  admitted  that  no  positive  system  can  have  any  claim  tn 
be  regarded  as  true. 

Here  the  Sophist  found  himself  within  a  citadel  of  impregnable 
strength,  a  citadel  from  whence  he  was  able  to  hurl  weapons  of  anni- 
hilating power  against  all  positive  systems  around.  When,  however,  he 
was  assaulted,  not  from  without  but  from  within  his  own  fortress,  when 
required  to  turn  from  outward  positions,  and  to  defend  by  valid  grounds 
and  arguments  the  truth  of  his  own  dogma  of  universal  doubt,  here  he 
found  himself  the  weakest  of  men.  Here,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  lay 
the  secret  of  the  power  of  Socrates  in  his  assaults  upon  the  Sceptici.siii 
around  him.  When  modem  Scepticism  is  thus  assailed,  as  it  will  be 
when  thinkers  have  well  considered  the  subject,  their  folly  will  be  seen, 
as  *  an  unclean  spirit  gone  out  of  man,'  and  '  wandering  through  dry 
places  seeking  rest,  and  finding  none,'  with  no  mind  *  empty,  swept,  and 
garnished'  to  receive  it  again. 

The  Sources  of  the  widespread  Influence  of  the  Sophists. 

Two  facts  then  existing  gave  an  extensive  influence  to  the  Sophists 
over  the  Grecian  mind — the  chaos  into  which  positive  systems  generally, 
in  their  destructive  assaults  one  upon  the  other,  had  been  reduced,  and 
the  fact  that  the  Sophists,  in  public  estimation,  excelled  all  other  thinkers 
in  the  presentation  of  forms  of  real  knowledge  which  were  most  netdful 
to  the  people.     The  Sophists  excelled  in  general  learning,  and  were  the 


2o6  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

instructors  of  the  people  in  whatever  was  generally  deemed  of  public 
utility.  *  Protagoras,'  in  the  language  of  Schweghler,  *  was  known  as  a 
teacher  of  virtue,  Gorgias  as  a  rhetorician  and  politician,  Prodicus  as  a 
grammarian  and  teacher  of  synonyms,  Heppias  as  a  man  of  various  attain- 
ments, who,  besides  astronomical  and  mathematical  studies,  busied  himself 
with  a  theory  of  mnemonics ;  others  took  for  their  problem  education, 
and  others  still  the  explanation  of  the  old  poets ;  the  brothers  Enthy- 
demus  and  Dionysidorus  gave  instruction  in  the  bearing  of  arms  and 
military  tactics.  Many  among  them,  as  Gorgias,  Brodicus,  and  Hippias, 
were  entrusted  with  embassies ;  in  short,  the  Sophists,  eac^i  one  according 
to  his  individual  tendency,  took  upon  themselves  every  variety  of  callings 
and  entered  into  every  sphere  of  science ;  their  method  is  the  only  thing 
common  to  all.'  Scepticism  was  never  boldly  presented  to  the  people, 
but  was  cunningly  blended  with  what  was  really  useful,  and  presented  as 
if  it  was  a  necessary  element  of  the  same.  The  same  thing  is  being 
repeated  in  our  own  age.  The  system  *  has  no  root  in  itself,'  but  is 
everywhere  visibly,  like  the  mistletoe,  attached  to  some  other  vital  form 
of  science,  and  appearing  as  if  it  was  a  branch  or  shoot  of  the  same. 

General  Reflections  suggested  by  the  prrcedino  Analysis  op  the 
Pre-Socialistic  Systems  op  Philosophy. 

1.  "We  Botice,  in  the  first  place,  the  circumstances  and  influences  under 
which  diverse  systems  of  Philosophy  arise  and  take  form  in  the  human 
mind.  They  are  among  others  such  as  the  following :  (1)  In  all  ages  and 
under  all  circumstances,  wherever  the  integrity  of  the  Intelligence  is 
respected  and  each  faculty  is  held  as  having  within  its  own  proper  sphere, 
and  in  respect  to  its  proper  objects,  absolute  authority  for  the  truth, 
there  arises  a  fixed  and  immutable  faith  in  the  reality  of  matter  and 
spirit,  time  and  space,  a  personal  God,  duty,  immortality,  and  retribu- 
tion. We  find,  also,  that  the  distinctness  and  absoluteness  of  faith  in 
these  verities  is  always  in  exact  accordance  with  the  fulness  and  distinct- 
ness of  the  recognition  and  respect  under  consideration.  If  any  faculty 
is  overlooked  or  its  integrity  is  in  the  remotest  degree  questioned,  there 
will  be  so  far  a  cloud  between  the  mind  and  these  verities.  We  may 
refer  to  Thales,  Anaxagoras,  Zenophanes,  and  Empedocles  as  examples 
exemplifying  and  verifying  the  above  statements.  (2)  If  the  integrity 
and  validity  of  the  faculty  of  Sense,  or  external  perception,  is  impeached 
and  denied,  and  those  of  internal  perception,  or  of  Eeason  as  the  faculty 
of  h  priori  insight  relating  to  being  and  its  laws,  are  affirmed,  then  there 
arises  a  faith  in  the  deductions  of  Idealism  in  some  of  their  forms,  and 
with  that  faith  a  denial  of  the  doctrine  of  a  personal  God  and  other 
kindred  doctrines.  The  Pythagorians  and  Metaphysicians  of  the  Eleatic 
school  are  veritable  examples  of  the  validity  of  these  statements.     In  no 


THE  SOPHISTS.  207 


age  or  nation  did  the  doctrines  of  Idealism,  iu  any  of  their  forms,  ever 
arise  but  upon  the  one  condition  above  stated.  Why  did  Pythagoras  and 
Parmenides  and  Zeno,  for  example,  assert  the  doctrine  of  'the  One'? 
Because,  and  for  the  express  reason  that  they  denied  the  integrity  of  the 
faculty  of  external  perception  for  the  reality  of  '  the  many.'  (3)  When- 
ever the  validity  of  the  faculty  of  internal  perception,  relatively  to  mental 
facts,  and  of  Eeason,  relating  to  being  and  its  laws,  is  impeached  and 
denied,  and  that  of  Sense  affirmed,  the  system  of  Materialism  commands 
the  individual  and  popular  faith,  as  in  the  examples  of  Anaxamauder, 
Leucippus,  and  Domocritus.  (4)  When  the  integrity  of  all  the  faculties, 
as  organs  of  truth,  is  impeached,  then,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Sophists, 
Scepticism  has  the  place  and  dominion  in  popular  thought.  The  history 
of  Philosophy  presents  no  exceptions  to  the  above  statements.  We  thus 
have  an  historical  verification  of  the  account  given  in  the  General  Intro- 
duction of  the  '  Origin  and  Genesis  of  Various  Systems  of  Philosophj'.* 
There  have  been  a  few  individuals  in  the  history  of  the  past  who  have 
denied  the  integrity  of  sense-perception  and  affirmed  the  validity  of  a 
so-called  a  priori  insight  of  Keason,  who  have  yet  been  real  Theists.  The 
reason  is  plain.  When  an  individual  imagines  himself  possessed  of  this 
power  or  faculty,  he  will  obtain,  through  its  affirmed  insight,  just  those, 
and  no  other,  forms  of  supposed  *  absolute  truth '  which  he  previously 
regarded  as  such.  Those  who  are  in  heart  Theists  may  affirm  the 
doctrines  of  God,  and  those  who  do  not  '  like  to  retain  God  in  their 
knowledge  '  may  deny  His  existence  for  mere  imaginary  reasons.  What 
we  maintain  is  that  Materialism,  Idealism,  and  Scepticism  never,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  have  place  in  human  thought  but  for  the  reasons  above 
assigned. 

2.  We  notice,  also,  in  our  preceding  criticisms  of  particular  systems,  a 
practical  illustration  of  the  fundamental  fallacy  involved  in  the  doctrine 
of  affirmed  d,  pricni,  insight  in  all  its  forms,  to  wit,  its  assumed  positive 
and  negative  revelations.  The  Oriental  Yogee  of  the  Vedanta  school,  for 
example,  in  one  and  the  same  act  of  insight,  not  only,  as  he  affirms, 
perceives  that  Brahm  exists,  but  that  nothing  else  does  exist.  The 
modern  Transcendentalist,  in  one  and  the  same  act  of  '  intellectual  intui- 
tion,' not  only  perceives  that  the  Absolute  does,  but  that  nothing  else  can 
exist  The  Idealist  of  Greece,  by  direct  and  immediate  insight  of 
reason,  perceives  not  only  that  'the  one,'  the  I,  exists,  but  that  'the 
many '  do  not  exist.  By  the  same  form  of  insight  the  ancient  and  modern 
dualists  obtain  a  revelation  of  absolute  truth  in  an  exclusively  negative 
form.  The  modern  formula  is  thus  given  by  Kant :  *  The  things  which 
envisage  are  not  that  in  themselves  for  what  we  take  them ;  neither 
are  their  relationships  in  themselves  so  constituted  as  they  appear  to  us.' 
The  ancient  formula,  as  given  by  Kapila,  is  this :  '  A' either  do  I  exist, 


2o8  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

nor  anything  which  pertains  to  myself,'  the  ancient  and  modern  formula 
being  really  identical  in  meaning.  Now,  a  greater  and  more  absurd 
hallucination  in  science  could  not  be  conceived  of,  than  we  actually  have 
in  all  the  above  cases.  Direct  and  immediate  insight  has,  and  can  have, 
nothing  negative  in  it.  Perception,  empirical  and  h  priori,  gives  its 
object  as  a  real  existence,  and  can  do  nothing  more.  With  my  face 
turned  towards  the  south,  I  clearly  and  distinctly  perceive  a  train  of 
cars  in  motion.  In  the  same  identical  act  I  affirm  myself  to  perceive  that 
no  other  train  on  earth  is  or  can  be  at  the  same  time  in  motion.  The 
world  would  very  properly  regard  me  as  demented.  Yet  this  is  a  case  of 
hallucination  no  more  palpable  and  real  than  is  true  of  all  the  forms  of 
insight  above  adduced.  The  Materialists,  for  example,  has  a  direct  and 
immediate  perception  of  •  the  many '  as  actually  existing.  Such  percep- 
tion, granting  it  to  be  real,  is  valid  for  the  reality  of  said  object,  and  for  all 
realities  necessarily  implied  by  the  same,  to  wit,  time  and  space.  No- 
thing is,  or  can  be,  given  in  the  act  of  perception  itself  but  '  the  many.' 
In  the  same  perceptive  act,  however,  our  scientist  professes  to  perceive  that 
nothing  but  matter  does  exist,  a  palpable  hallucination  of  false  science. 
The  Yogee,  the  Transcendeutalist,  and  the  Grecian  Pantheist,  affirm  that 
by  direct  and  immediate  d  priori  insight  they  perceive  Brahm,  '  the 
Absolute,'  or  *  the  One,'  to  exist.  That  perception,  supposing  it  real,  is 
valid  for  the  existence  of  its  object,  and  in  itself  is,  and  can  be,  valid 
for  the  existence  or  non-existence  of  no  other  reality.  But  these  indi- 
viduals affirm  that  in  one  and  the  same  act  they  not  only  perceive 
Brahm,  *  the  Absolute,'  or  '  the  One,'  to  be  real,  but  that  nothing  else 
does  exist.  If  the  same  form  of  hallucination  was  manifested  in  any 
other  sphere  of  thought  but  that  of  philosophy,  the  subject  would 
justly  be  sent  to  a  lunatic  asylum.  Perceptive  insight,  we  repeat,  is 
valid  for  the  reality  of  its  object,  and,  in  itself,  is  valid  for  nothing  else. 
If  the  existence  of  the  reality  perceived  necessarily  implies  the  being,  or 
non-being,  of  some  other  object,  its  being  or  non-being  may  be  affirmed, 
not  as  perceived,  but  as  implied  by  what  is  perceived.  In  the  affirmed 
it  priori  insight  of  the  Yugee,  the  Trancendeutalist,  and  Grecian  Pantheist, 
Brahm,  *  the  Absolute,'  or  *  the  One,'  is  affirmed  to  be  perceived,  not  only 
as  real,  but  as  the  only  reality.  Unless  we  can  begin  with  the  intuitive 
perception,  that  the  Absolute  exists,  as  the  sole  and  exclusive  reality,  that 
is,  that  the  Absolute,  and  that  nothing  else,  does  exist,  we  cannot, 
Schelling  affirms,  'take  the  first  step  in  the  speculative  philosophy.'  In 
other  words,  unless  we  can  at  the  outset  perpetrate  the  greatest  absurdity 
that  ever  danced  in  the  brain  of  a  crazy  philosophy,  we  cannot  even 
cross  the  threshold  into  the  high  sphere  of  speculative  thought. 

The  fact  that  matter  is  real  does  not,  in  itself,  imply  the  non-being  of 
spirit.     The  fact,  then,  that  we  perceive  'the  many'  to  exist  has,  in 


THE  SOPHISTS.  209 


itself,  nothing  to  do  with  the  question  whether  '  the  One '  does  or  does 
not  exist.  Nor  is  the  idea  that  '  the  One '  exists,  in  any  sense  or  form 
incompatible  with  the  idea  that  '  the  Many '  exist  also.  Nothing  can  be 
more  undeniably  evident  than  the  fact  that  Materialism  and  Idealism,  in 
all  their  forms  and  deductions,  are  based  wholly  upon  the  grossest  and 
most  palpable  forms  of  scientific  hallucination  ever  conceived  of,  an 
hallucination  only  equalled  by  the  sceptical  formula,  that  we  don't  know 
that  we  don't  know  anything. 

3.  We  have  also,  in  our  preceding  elucidations,  a  practical  illustration 
of  the  absolute  impossibility  of  vindicating  for  any  form  of  Materialism, 
Idealism,  or  Scepticism,  even  an  apparent  scientific  basis.  Such  basis,  to 
be  really  and  truly  scientific,  must,  undeniably,  be  either  a  judgment 
self-evident,  or  one  whose  validity  has  been  strictly  demonstrated  to  be 
true.  We  have  already  carefully  examined  every  principle  on  which 
every  such  system  rests,  and  have  found  every  such  principle  to  be 
utterly  void  of  seK-evident  or  demonstrated  validity,  while  their  fixed 
characteristics  as  mere  assumptions  have  been  absolutely  evinced. 

Each  of  the  two  systems  first  named  hfis  its  positive  and  negative  side. 
The  positive  side  is  this :  one  substance,  or  form  of  existence,  is  real.  The 
negative  side  is  this:  no  other  substance,  or  form  of  existence,  Ls  real. 
Now,  the  validity  of  this  negative  side  is  neither  self-evident,  nor  can  it, 
hy  any  possibility,  be  verified  for  science.  That  this  principle  has  self- 
evident  validity,  no  one  will  affirm.  We  have  before  us  two  absolutely 
incompatible  judgments:  to  wit,  that  spirit  is,  and  matter  is  not,  and  that 
matter  is,  and  spirit  is  not,  real.  Have  each  of  these  judgments  self- 
evident  validity  J  Each  or  neither  must  be  thus  evident  Both  cannot, 
and,  therefore,  neither  can  be  self-evident. 

Equally  impossible  is  it  to  prove  the  one  to  be  true  and  the  other  false, 
the  positive  evidence  in  favour  of  each,  and  against  the  other,  being  ab- 
solutely balanced.  The  identical  form  of  evidence  which  can  be  adduced 
in  favour  of  the  existence  of  one  of  these  substances,  can  be  adduced  in 
favour  of  that  of  the  other ;  and  every  form  of  disproof  which  can  be 
adduced  against  the  reality  of  one,  may  be  adduced,  with  equal  force, 
against  that  of  the  other. 

Neither  of  these  systems,  then,  can,  on  its  negative  side,  at  least,  have 
any  scientific  basis  at  all,  and  both  together  must  fall  to  pieces. 

Scepticism,  also,  in  all  its  forms,  has  its  positive  and  negative  sides. 
It  admits  and  affirms  the  absolute  validity  of  human  knowledge  in  one 
form  at  least  It  admits  and  affirms  that  we  doubt,  and  know  that  we 
doubt  *  It  is  certain'  we  are  told,  '  that  we  can  know  nothing  of  the 
nature  of  either  matter  or  spirit'  Relatively  to  two  fundamental  facts, 
then,  doubt  and  nescience,  the  Intelligence  is  a  faculty,  and  they  are  to  it 
objects  of  real   knowledge.     This  is  the  positive  side  of  tbe  system. 

14 


A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


'Now,  here,'  we  say,  in  looking  at  the  negative  side,  *is  a  strange  thing,' 
that  the  Intelligence  should  be  capacitated  to  know  its  own  doubts  and 
ignorances  just  as  they  are,  and  should  be  incapacitated  to  know  any 
other  facts  or  realities,  as  they  are  in  themselves.  That  *  we  know  this 
only,  that  we  nothing  know,'  is  surely  not  a  self-evident  truth.  How  can 
the  Sceptic  prove  his  doctrine  %  The  least,  as  we  have  shown  already, 
that  can  be  required  of  him  is,  that  he  adduce  facts  and  arguments  of  the 
reality  and  validity  of  which  we  can  and  must  be  more  absolutely  assured 
than  we  actually  are  of  our  own  existence,  and  of  that  of  material  forms 
around  us,  facts  and  arguments  which  necessarily  imply  the  utter  in- 
validity of  our  knowledge  of  mind  and  matter.  The  Sceptic  knows,  and 
all  mankind  know,  that  no  such  facts  and  arguments  can  be  adduced. 
No  scientific  basis,  therefore,  can  be  adduced  for  any  one  of  these 
systems. 

For  the  doctrine  of  spirit,  matter,  time,  space,  God,  duty,  and  immor- 
tality, on  the  other  hand,  such  a  basis  can  be  most  readily  verified.  All 
the  facts  and  principles  which  lie  at  the  basis  of  our  faith  in  all  these 
verities,  are  affirmed  as  real  and  valid  by  the  direct,  immediate,  and  abso- 
lute testimony  of  the  universal  Consciousness.  No  grounds  or  arguments 
against  this  faith,  can,  by  any  possibility,  be  adduced  of  the  validity  of 
which  we  are,  or  can  be,  so  absolutely  and  rationally  assured,  as  we  are 
and  must  be  of  the  reality  and  validity  of  these  facts  and  principles. 
When  the  Sceptic  shall  adduce  against  our  faith  in  these  verities, 
*  grounds  and  arguments '  of  the  validity  of  which  we  are  and  ought  to 
be  more  assured  than  we  are  of  our  own  personal  existence,  and  of  the 
reality  of  material  forms  around  us,  then,  and  not  until  then,  will  we,  or 
ought  we,  to  admit  that  the  faith  under  consideration  has  no  scientific 
basis.  The  basis  on  which  this  faith  rests  is  the  conscious  integrity  of 
the  universal  Intelligence.  If  this  is  not  a  scientific  basis,  no  science  has 
such  a  basis. 

Much  is  said  in  certain  schools  of  the  progress  of  our  race,  and  very 
much  may  veritably  be  said  upon  the  subject.  There  is  a  fundamental 
difference,  however,  between  progress  in  government,  civilization,  the 
arts,  and  sciences  in  general,  and  real  progress  in  ontological  systems. 
In  the  particulars  first  named,  progress  has  been  visible  and  marked.  In 
respect  to  those  last  named,  Theism  excepted,  there  has  been  no  real 
progress  whatever  for  the  last  twenty-five  centuries.  There  is  method, 
even  in  madness.  So  there  is  in  error.  When  the  mind  diverges  from 
the  track  of  truth,  it  must  diverge,  as  we  have  shown,  from  certain  fixed 
points,  and  move  from  thence  on  certain  determinable  lines.  If  it  shall 
construct  certain  systems  of  false  science,  it  must  constiuct  them  after 
one  or  another  fixed  form.  There  is  but  one  system  of  truth,  ami  there 
can  be  but  a  certain  number  of  systems  of  false  science.      When  that 


THE  SOPHISTS.  211 


number  is  completed,  error  must  conform  to  one  or  the  other  of  these 
fixed  forms,  and  thus,  as  ages  roll  on,  repeat  itself.  In  the  General 
Introduction,  we  determined  the  number  and  forms  of  all  conceivable 
and  possible  systems  of  Ontology.  In  our  examination  of  the  Oriental 
and  Grecian  systems,  we  have  found  every  system  we  then  designated, 
and  in  the  exact  form  there  represented.  Hereafter  we  shall  search  in 
vain  for  Anti-Theism  in  any  new,  or  more  perfected  form  than  we  have 
already  considered.  Kant,  Fichte,  Schelling,  Hegel,  Condilac,  and  Comte, 
for  example,  we  shall  find  to  be  nothing  more  than  unimproved  copyists 
of  Vyasa,  Kapila,  Kanada,  Gautama  Buddha,  Pythagoras,  Parmeuides, 
Zeno  of  Elea,  and  Democritus.  Messrs.  Emerson,  Mill,  Spencer,  and 
Huxley,  will  be  found  to  be  mere  repetitions  of  Gorgias,  Protagoras, 
Prodicus,  Polus,  and  Metrodorus.  Even  Mr.  Darwin  will  be  found  to  be 
but  a  very  imperfect  edition  of  Anaximander.  How  our  ancestors  were 
nursed  by  their  monkey  parents,  and  how  these  ancestors  afterwards  lost 
their  hairy  covering  and  long  tails,  Mr.  Darwin  tells  us  very  in)perfectly. 
According  to  the  Grecian  sage,  those  ancestors,  without  any  such  cover- 
ing, or  tails,  were  begotten  as  veritable  men  and  women  in  the  bellies  of 
fishes,  and  having  been  kindly  nursed  there  until  they  were  able  to  care 
for  themselves,  were  spewed  out  upon  the  dry  land,  and  sent  forth  to  seek 
their  fortunes.  If  compelled  to  make  our  election  between  the  two 
theories,  we  should  unhesitatingly  prefer  the  latter.  To  us,  there  is  more 
of  dignity,  and  quite  as  near  an  approach  to  rationality,  in  the  whale,  as 
in  the  monkey.  If  nature  can  make  a  leap  from  the  irrational  to  the 
rational,  why  not  from  a  whale  to  a  man  ?  We  must  regard  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  theory  as  a  de^oueiabe  s^awu  fiom  the  Grecian. 


CHAPTER  II. 
THE  SOCRATIC  EVOLUTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY. 

INTRODUCTION. 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHILOSOPHY. 

The  Object  op  Philosophy. 

The  object  of  Philosophy,  as  we  have  formerly  stated,  is  not  the  science 
of  mere  facts,  or  of  mere  existences,  but  of  the  reason,  the  idtimate  reason 
especially,  why  the  facts  of  the  universe  are  as  they  are,  and  not  other- 
wise, and  why  real  existences  are  related  to  one  another  as  they  are,  and 
not  otherwise.  *  Philosophy,'  says  Schwegler,  and  rightly  so,  •  is  never 
satisfied  with  receiving  that  which  is  given  simply  as  it  ia  given,  but 
rather  follows  it  out  to  its  ultimate  grounds;  it  examines  every  individual 
thing  in  reference  to  a  final  principle,  and  considers  it  as  one  link  in  the 
whole  chain  of  knowledge.'  Of  all  the  sciences,  Philosophy,  as  we  have 
also  formerly  said,  is  the  ultimate.  The  entire  sphere  of  the  admitted 
unknowable  and  unknown,  Philosophy  recognizes  as  such,  and  never 
attempts  the  elucidation  of  facts,  or  relations  of  existences,  lying  within 
that  sphere.  In  the  presence  of  real  facts,  the  specific  reasons  for  the 
occurrence  of  which  are  unascertained,  or  unascertainable.  Philosophy 
recognizes  the  known  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  mysterious  on  the  other, 
and  locates  such  facts  within  the  sphere  of  the  present,  at  least,  inexplic- 
able. In  the  presence  of  self-contradictory  judgments,  Philosophy 
recognizes  the  absurd,  and  locates  the  objects  of  such  judgments  within 
the  sphere  of  the  impossible.  Explicable  facta  of  real  knowledge,  and 
explicable  relations  of  known  existences,  these,  and  these  exclusively,  fall 
within  the  sphere  of  Philosophy.  Whenever  we  find  ourselves  in  the 
presence  of  such  facts  and  relations,  and  the  question  arises,  why  are  said 
facts  and  relations  as  they  are,  and  not  otherwise,  the  great  problem  which 
it  is  the  exclusive  province  of  Philosophy  to  solve  rises  before  u& 


PSYCHOLOGY  A XD  PHILOSOPHY.  21;, 

The  IjoiuTABiiB  Characteristics  of  all  Explicable  Facts  akd 

Eblations. 

A  question  of  fundamental  interest  here  arises,  namely,  what  are  tlie 
fixed  and  immutable  characteristics  of  all  explicable  facts  and  relations  ?  A 
known  fact,  or  class  of  admitted  facts,  are  before  us.  A  spocitic  reason 
for  their  existence  and  occurrence  is  asked  for.  If  these  facts  are  of 
such  a  character  as  to  be  fully  explicable  on  some  one  specific  hypothesis, 
and  upon  no  other,  we  find  ourselves  in  the  presence  of  explicable  facts. 
If  these  facts  suggest  no  specific  hypothesis  of  any  kind,  they  belong  to 
the  sphere  of  the  mysterious.  If  they  suggest  a  certain  number  of 
hypotheses,  one  of  which  must  be  true,  and  all  the  others  false,  while 
they  are  equally  compatible  with,  and  explicable  by  each,  such  facts  are 
not  fuUy  explicable,  but  sceptical  in  their  character.  Explicable  facts 
are  always  of  such  a  character  as  to  imply  necessarily  the  specific  cause 
or  law  of  their  existence  and  occurrence.  When  we  inquire  for  such  a 
cause  or  law,  it  is  not  sufficient  to  prove  that  the  facts  are  merely  con- 
sistent with  a  given  hypothesis.  When  we  have  gone  thus  far,  we  havw 
only  proven  that  said  hypothesis  may  be,  and  not  that  it  is,  true,  much 
less  that  it  must  be  true.  Facts  are  really  explained  when,  and  only 
when,  an  hypothesis  is  found  which  is  absolutely  perceived  to  be  not 
only  compatible  with  said  facts,  but  as  necessarily  implied  by  the  same. 
In  other  words,  it  must  be  seen,  in  the  light  of  said  facts,  not  only 
that  said  hypothesis  may  be,  but  that  it  must  be,  true,  and  all  other  and 
opposite  ones,  consequently,  must  be  false.  The  facts  of  the  universe, 
material  and  mental,  for  example,  are  before  the  mind.  The  question  to 
be  answered  is,  what  is  the  ultimate  reason,  or  cause,  why  the  facts 
before  us  are  as  they  are,  and  not  otherwise  1  Two,  and  only  two,  hypo- 
theses present  themselves.  One  of  them,  consequently,  must  be  true, 
and  the  other  false.  That  reason,  or  cause,  as  all  admit,  must  be  an  in- 
hering law  of  nature  itself,  or  the  agency  of  a  personal  God,  acting  upon 
nature  from  without.  If  the  facts  before  us  are  of  such  a  nature  as 
necessarily  to  imply  that  one  of  these  hypotheses  must  be  true,  and  the 
other  false,  then,  relatively  to  such  cause  or  law,  the  facts  under  con- 
sideration are  explicable.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  these  facts  are  found  to 
be  equally  compatible  with  each  hypothesis,  then  they  are  not  explicable, 
but  inexplicable,  or  sceptical  in  their  character.  Explicable  facts,  we 
repeat,  always  themselves  imply  the  hypothesis  by  which  they  are 
explained  and  elucidated,  and  not  only  imply  but  always  reveal  the 
hypothesis  under  consideration.  In  other  words,  real  causes  and  laws, 
when  ascertainable,  are  both  revealed  and  implied  by  the  facts  which  the 
former  produce  and  determine.  There  can  be  no  greater  and  more  obvious 
hallucination  in  science,  than  is  involved  in  the  idea  that  causes  and 


214  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

laws  may  be  discerned,  not  through  facts  by  "which  such  laws  and  causes 
are  implied,  but  by  direct  and  immediate  ^  priori  insight.  Suppose  that 
in  utter  ignorance  of  facts  the  mind  should  have,  were  the  thing  possible, 
a  direct  vision  of  a  cause  or  law,  that  is,  a  vision  of  such  objects  in  se. 
What  vrould  such  objects  be  to  the  mind  1  Nothing,  we  answer,  but 
meaningless  entities,  and  no  real  causes  or  laws  at  all.  By  no  possibility 
can  causes,  substances,  or  laws,  be  known  to  the  human  mind,  but  through 
the  phenomena,  oi  facts,  by  which  the  former  are  implied,  and  known  as 
thus  implied. 

The  Great  Problem  op  Philosophy. 

"We  are  now  prepared  to  state  definitely  the  great  and  exclusive 
problem,  the  solution  of  which  devolves  upon  Philosophy.  With 
existences  in  se,  that  is,  with  substances,  causes,  and  laws,  and  relations 
of  existence,  not  implied  by,  and  known  through,  phenomena,  and  facts 
known  to  be  real.  Philosophy  has  no  more  to  do,  than  it  has  in  determin- 
ing the  specific  size,  weight,  and  form  of  objects  on  the  further  side  of 
the  moon.  The  real  problem  under  consideration  is  this:  1.  In  the  light 
of  valid  criteria,  to  distinguish  and  separate  forms  and  facts  of  valid 
knowledge  from  all  mere  assumptions,  opinions,  beliefs,  and  conjectures 
■which  may,  or  may  not,  be  true.  2.  To  deduce  the  substances,  causes, 
and  laws  and  relations  of  existence  implied  by  the  real  facts  which  are 
the  objects  of  valid  knowledge.  Through  the  known.  Philosophy  is 
burdened  with  the  single  problem,  to  determine  the  existences,  and  laws 
and  relations  of  existences,  implied  by  the  facts  which  are  known. 

Remove  the  phenomena  and  facts,  and  no  problem  whatever  remains 
for  Philosophy  ta  solve.  Assume  that  *  the  things  which  we  envisage 
are  not  that  in  themselves  for  which  we  take  them,'  and  that  '  neither 
are  their  relationships  in  themselves  so  constituted  as  they  appear  to  us,' 
and  we  are  left  in  the  same  condition  as  before,  with  no  basis  to  stanil 
upon,  and  no  real  substances  and  causes  to  inquire  for.  All  problems  aie 
located  in  the  sphere  of  the  unknown  and  unknowable.  If  we  should 
assume  that  appearances  or  illusions  may  be  known  as  they  are  in  them- 
selves, we  are  in  the  same  limbo  as  before.  The  same  Intelligence  which 
'  envisages '  realities,  not  as  they  are,  but  as  they  are  not  in  themselves, 
■will  '  envisage '  appearances,  not  as  they  are,  but  as  they  are  not  in  them- 
selves, and  so  on  for  ever.  We  can  never  find  a  valid  basis  from  which 
to  reason  about  anything.  If  while  we  admit  the  validity  of  our  know- 
ledge of  certain  facts,  we  ignore,  or  deny  a  part  of  such  facts,  or  include 
others  which  are  not  thus  known,  Philosophy  is  then  deflected  from  the  line 
of  truth,'  and  is  started  in  the  fixed  direction  of  fundamental  error,  and  is 
certain  to  land  us  there.  The  first  problem  for  Philosophy,  we  repeat,  is 
this— to  wit,  What  are  the  facts  known  to  be  real,  and  what  are  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  215 

principles  known  to  possess  universal  and  necessary  validity  ]  The 
second  is  like  the  first,  namely  this,  Wliat  are  the  substances,  causes,  and 
laws  and  relations  of  existence,  necessarily  implied  by  said  facts  and 
principles?  Any  departure  from  these  fixed  laws  of  induction  and  de- 
duction, or  any  other  method  of  philosophizing,  is,  and  must  be,  '  vaiu 
wisdom  all,  and  false  philosophy.' 

Thk  Relations  op  Psychology  to  Philosophy. 

The  real  relations  of  Psychology  to  Philosophy  involve  questions  of 
fundamental  importance  in  science,  questions,  however,  which  philosophers 
have  seldom  pondered  at  all,  or  wrongly  resolved  when  inquired  into* 
The  end  and  aim  of  Philosophy,  in  its  analysis  of  the  human  intelligence, 
is  to  determine  the  number  of  the  intellectual  faculties,  primary  and 
secondary,  the  exclusive  sphere  and  objects  of  each  faculty,  their  mutual 
relationships  to  one  another,  and  their  individual  and  combined  relation- 
ships to  science.  If  any  one  of  these  faculties  is  ignored,  falsely  explained, 
or  displaced  from  its  appropriate  and  exclusive  sphere.  Science  will  be 
made  to  rest  upon  a  false  basis,  or  will  substitute  vain  imaginings  for 
truth. 

Intellectual  Faculties,  Primary  and  Secondary. 

Facts  or  phenomena,  as  we  have  formerly  shown,  are  exclusively  known 
by  perception,  external  and  internal,  and  imply  two  such  faculties — Self- 
couijciousuess,  which  apprehends  mind  in  its  operations,  and  Sense,  which 
apprehends  matter  in  its  phenomena  or  manifestations.  All  the  material 
ami  mental  facts  which  lie  at  the  basis  of  all  deductions  in  the  science  of 
Ontology  are  given  exclusively  through  the  intuitions  of  these  two 
faculties.  Take  away  the  facts  thus  given,  or  deny  the  validity  of  our 
knowledge  of  the  same,  and  nothing  whatever  is  left  for  Philosophy  to 
elucidate  or  inquire  about.  Deny  the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of 
subjective  or  objective  facts,  and  affirm  it  of  one  class  exclusively,  and 
Philosophy,  with  one  eye  put  out,  is  sent  off  in  the  direction  of 
Materialism  or  Idealism,  as  the  case  may  be.  Take  these  facts  just  as, 
by  the  Intelligence,  they  are  handed  over  to  Philosophy,  let  them  bo 
carefully  separated  from  all  elements  introduced  by  the  action  of  will  and 
sensibility,  let  all  realities  be  accepted  which  are  necessarily  implied  by 
facts  perceived,  and  all  principles  which  arise  from  the  necessary  relations 
between  said  facts  and  realities ;  and  finally,  let  all  deductions  necessarily 
arising  from  said  facts  and  principles  be  given,  and  then  we  shall  have  a 
veritable  and  scientifically  evinced  Philosophy  or  system  of  universal 
being  and  its  laws. 

The  original  elements  of  all  our  knowledge,  in  all  its  forms,  are  con- 
stituted of  facts  perceived  and  realities,  such  as  space,  time,  bubstauce. 


2i6  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHfLOSOPIIY. 

and  cause,  directly  and  immediately  implied  by  said  facts.  Tlie  faculty 
which  gives  these  implied  realities  we  have  denominated  Eeason.  The 
primary  faculties  of  the  Intelligence,  then,  are  three — Self-consciousness, 
the  organ  of  subjective ;  Sense,  the  organ  of  objective ;  and  Reason,  the 
organ  of  original  implied  knowledge.  The  sphere  of  Reason,  then,  is  just 
as  fixed  and  definite  as  is  that  of  either  of  the  perceptive  faculties.  Con- 
sciousness and  Sense  give  us  facts  or  phenomena,  mental  and  physical. 
Reason  apprehends  the  realities  implied  directly,  immediately,  or  in- 
tuitively by  the  facts  or  phenomena  which  are  perceived.  The  action  of 
Reason  is  always  conditioned  on  the  prior  action  of  the  other  faculties,  and 
jthe  nature  and  character  of  its  apprehensions  are  determined  by  those  of 
the  other  faculties.  Reason  cannot  apprehend  substances,  causes,  and 
laws  but  through  facts  or  phenomena  previously  perceived,  and  the  nature 
of  the  substances,  causes,  and  laws,  which  it  apprehends,  is  always  and  of 
necessity  as  is  that  of  the  facts  referred  to.  If  facts  are  not  perceived, 
no  substances,  or  causes,  or  laws  are  manifested,  and  none  can  be  appre- 
hended. Nothing  can  be  more  manifest.  Reason,  we  repeat,  apprehends 
substances,  causes,  and  laws  through  facts  or  phenomena,  and  as  implied 
by  the  same.  The  real  and  relative  sphere  of  the  three  primary  faculties 
is,  therefore,  perfectly  fixed  and  determined.  Reason  can  do  no  more  nor 
less  than  apprehend  the  realities  implied  by  facts  of  external  and  internal 
perception,  realities  such  as  time,  space,  substance,  cause,  etc 

Of  the  secondary  faculties,  the  first  which  claims  attention  is  the  Under- 
standmg  or  conceptive  faculty — the  faculty  which  combines  the  elements 
given  by  these  three  primary  ones  into  conceptions  or  notions,  particular 
and  general  When  we  analyze  correctly  any  conception  or  notion  which 
we  have  of  any  object  of  perception,  external  or  internal,  we  shall  find 
said  conception  to  be  constituted  of  two  classes  of  elements — the  perceived 
and  the  implied,  or  the  contingent  and  the  necessary.  Our  idea  of  body, 
for  example,  is  constituted  of  two  classes  of  elements — qualities  perceived, 
and  substance  implied  by  what  is  perceived.  Perception  gives  the  former, 
Reason  the  latter.  The  same,  undeniably,  holds  equally  in  regard  to  all 
our  conceptions  of  all  perceived  objects  of  every  kind,  whether  mental  or 
material.  Such  palpable  facts  absolutely  identify  Reason  as  a  primary 
intellectual  faculty,  and  also  as  the  organ  of  intuitively  implied  know- 
ledge. The  same  facts  as  absolutely  determine  and  evince  the  exclusive 
sphere  of  the  Understanding,  namely,  to  combine  into  conceptions  the 
elements  of  original  intuition — elements  furnished  by  the  three  primary 
faculties  designated. 

The  Judgment  now  intervenes  and  affirms  the  relations  existing  between 
conceptions,  or  the  objects  of  the  same.  Judgments  are  of  two  classes, 
intuitive  and  deduced.  In  every  judgment  in  which  the  subject  implies 
the  predicate,  we  have  not  only  an  intuitive  bat  necessary  judgments 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  217 

The  judgments,  body  implies  space ;  succession,  time ;  events,  a  cause ; 
phenomena,  substance :  and  things  equal  to  the  same  things  are  equal  to 
onA  another,  are  of  this  character  When,  in  any  judgment,  the  subject 
does  not  imply  the  predicate,  but  the  relation  between  them  is  directly 
and  immediately  perceived,  we  have  an  intuitive  but  contingent  judgment. 
When  this  relation  is  discerned,  not  immediately,  but  through  other 
judgments,  then  we  obtain  a  derivative  or  inferred  judgment.  The 
judgment  is  the  logical  faculty. 

We  need  merely  to  refer  to  the  two  other  secondary  faculties — the 
associating  principles,  as  Memory  and  EecoUection,  and  the  Imagination, 
the  faculty  which  blends  the  elements  of  thought,  given  by  all  the  other 
faculties,  into  couceptions  corresponding,  not  to  realities  as  they  are  in 
themselves,  but  to  ideas  of  the  beautiful,  the  grand,  the  sublime,  etc. 

The  primary  faculties,  then,  are  three  in  number — Consciousness,  or  the 
faculty  of  subjective  knowledge ;  Sense,  the  faculty  of  objective  know- 
ledge ;  and  Eeason,  the  faculty  of  intuitively  implied  knowledge. 

There  are,  on  the  other  hand,  just  four,  no  more  and  no  less, 
secondary  faculties — Understanding,  or  the  notion-forming  or  conceptive 
faculty;  the  Judgment,  or  the  faculty  which  apprehends  and  affirms  the 
relations  existing  between  conceptions  or  their  objects ;  the  associating 
principle,  including  Memory  and  EecoUection ,  and  the  Imagination,  or 
blending  faculty.  A  correct  Psychology  will  not  faU  to  recognize  all 
these  faculties,  will  never  ignore  or  omit  any  one  of  them,  will  add  none 
to  them,  and  will  never  confound  any  one  of  them  with  any  other,  so 
marked  and  distinguished  from  every  other  is  each  by  readily  discernible 
phenomena,  and  so  definitely  fixed  and  determinable  is  the  sphere  of 
each. 

Relations  op  these  Faculties  to  Soienob. 

All  the  above-named  faculties,  primary  and  secondary,  the  Imagination 
excepted,  have  their  fixed  and  definitely  assignable  sphere  and  authority, 
in  every  valid  scientific  procedure  All  the  original  elements  which  enter 
into  every  such  procedure  are  furnished  by  the  three  primary  faculties. 
The  first  step  in  true  science  is  a  full  separation  of  all  elements  of  original 
intuition  from  all  foreign  admixtures,  and  the  adoption  of  the  former  as 
the  exclusive  basis  of  all  scientific  deduction  Every  procedure  into 
which  none  but  such  elements  enter,  and  from  which  none  thus  given  are 
excluded,  has,  so  far,  an  absolutely  valid  basis,  or  we  have  and  can  have 
no  such  basis  whatever. 

Apprehensions  represent  two  classes  of  phenomena,  conceptions,  and 
ideas.  The  former  represent  our  apprehensions  of  objects  of  external  and 
internal  perception,  our  apprehensions  of  matter  and  spirit,  for  example ; 
the  latter  represent  our  apprehensions  of  objects  of  intuitively  impiitid 


2i8  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

knowledge,  such  as  space,  time,  substance,  cause,  and  personal  identity. 
Ideas,  in  the  sense  under  consideration,  of  course,  have  universal  and 
absolute  validity.  Understanding-conceptions  have  such  validity  when, 
and  only  when,  they  embrace  nothing  whatever  but  the  elements  of 
original  intuition,  elements  perceived  and  implied.  If  such  conceptions 
exclude  any  elements  really  thus  given,  or  include  any  not  thus  given,  we 
shall,  of  course,  arrange,  classify,  and  elucidate  objects,  as  they  are  not, 
and  not  as  they  are. 

When,  in  the  sphere  of  the  Judgment  or  logical  faculty — the  province 
of  the  associating  principles,  as  Memory  and  Eecollection,  being  too 
obvious  to  require  particular  specification  in  this  connection — when  in 
the  sphere  of  the  logical  faculty,  we  say,  none  but  conceptions,  and  ideas 
which,  in  the  sense  defined,  are  really  valid,  have  place,  when  all  judg- 
ments pertaining  to  the  relations  to  one  another  of  conceptions  and  ideas, 
or  their  objects,  have  absolute  intuitive  or  deductive  validity,  all  mere 
assumptions,  opinions,  beliefs,  and  conjectures,  which  may  or  may  not  be 
true,  being  excluded,  then,  and  only  then,  we  have  true  science.  When 
we  depart  in  any  direction,  from  the  line  of  induction  and  deduction 
above  laid  down,  we  are  moving  on  the  track  of  false  science. 

Comparative  Validity  and  Authority  op  these  Faculties. 

The  above  analysis  of  the  intellectual  faculties  fully  evinces  the  fact, 
that  each  one  of  them  has  a  particular,  distinct,  exclusive,  and  readily 
definable  sphere.  While  each  acts  in  perfect  harmony  with  all,  and  all 
with  each,  the  functions  of  each  are  exclusive,  and  peculiar  to  itself,  and 
furnish  us  forms  and  elements  of  knowledge  impossible  to  every  other.  The 
faculty  of  external  perception,  for  example,  has  a  function  and  sphere  which 
no  other  faculty  can  perform  or  occupy.  We  are  necessitated  to  accept  as 
valid  for  science  the  intuitions  of  this  faculty,  or  to  repudiate  them 
altogether,  such  intuitions  having  absolute  validity,  or  none  at  all.  The 
same  undeniably  holds  true  of  every  other  faculty.  Its  authority,  within 
its  proper  sphere,  must  be  regarded  as  absolute,  or  utterly  repudiated.  Its 
functions  no  other  faculty  can  discharge,  and  hence,  in  all  scientific  pro- 
cedures, it  must  be  accepted  as  a  valid  organ  of  truth,  or  repudiated  as  *  a 
liar  from  the  beginning.' 

True  science,  consequently,  will  permit  the  validity  of  no  faculty, 
within  its  proper  sphere,  to  be  questioned  at  all  without  the  weightiest 
conceivable  reasons.  Suppose,  that  the  validity  of  any  one  faculty  is 
impeached.  To  what  faculty  or  faculties  shall  the  appeal  be  made  to  test 
the  validity  of  such  impeachment  1  No  faculty  can  go  out  of  its  own 
and  enter  the  sphere  of  another,  and  there  sit  in  judgment  upon  the  pro- 
cedures of  the  latter.  No  faculty  has,  or  can  have,  valid  insight  but 
within  its  own  proper  and  exclusive  sphere.     ISo  faculty,  therefore,  can 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  aip 

authoritatively  adjudicate  upon  the  validity  of  the  procedures  of  any 
other.  Before  any  faculty  can  be  impeached  and  its  authority  set  aside, 
we  repeat  what  we  have  often  said,  before,  a  form  of  knowledge  must  be 
adduced  of  the  validity  of  which  we  are,  and  must  be,  more  absolutely 
assured  than  we  are,  or  can  be,  of  the  validity  of  that  furnished  by  the 
faculty  under  consideration,  and  the  forms  of  knowledge  presented  must 
be  absolutely  incompatible  with  one  another.  Until,  as  we  have  often 
said  before,  the  Idealist,  Materialist,  or  Sceptic,  shall  adduce  'ground  and 
arguments '  of  the  v  ilidity  of  which  we  cannot  but  be  more  assured  than 
we  are  of  the  fact  of  our  personal  existence,  and  that  of  material  objects 
around  us,  'grounds  and  arguments'  which  necessarily  imply  the  inva- 
lidity of  our  convictions  of  the  reality  of  the  self  and  of  the  not-self,  we 
should  act  most  irrationally  and  absurdly  if  we  should,  for  a  moment, 
doubt  the  validity  of  these  convictions. 


SECTION  L 

SOCRATES. 

The  name  of  Socrates  is  a  household  word  among  all  who  know  anything 
of  Greece,  and  to  all  such  the  memory  of  Socrates  is  '  as  ointment  poured 
forth.'  As  the  Catholic  is  taught  *  that  there  is  no  salvation  out  of  the 
Catholic  Church,'  so  we,  from  childhood  up,  had  been  taught  that  outside 
of  the  circle  of  revealed  truth,  no  one  ever  had  attained  to  the  real  pos- 
session of  moral  virtue  or  eternal  life.  When  in  our  classical  studies, 
however,  we,  through  the  writings  of  Xenophon  and  Plato,  came  to  kuow 
the  man  as  he  was,  when  his  life,  hjs  character,  and  doctrines  lifted  their 
divine  forms  before  our  mind,  the  conviction  forced  itself  upon  us  that 
Greece,  in  the  midst  of  her  crimes  and  vices  and  errors,  had  known  at 
least  one  wise  and  good  man — one  whose  home  is  now  '  the  bosom  of 
God.'  This  fixed  conviction  we  did  not  disclose  even  to  our  classmates  ; 
for  why,  when  no  good  could  be  attained  thereby,  should  we  consent  to 
suffer  the  imputation  of  heresy  %  Thus  that  conviction  remained  until, 
in  the  Theological  Seminary,  we  came  under  the  instruction  of  the 
venerable  Moses  Stuart.  When  speaking  to  us  of  '  the  wise  men  from 
the  East/  as  we  recollect,  he  turned  aside  to  give  us  his  impressions  of 
Socrates.  Up  to  a  few  years  previous,  he  informed  us,  he  had  entertained 
the  fixed  conviction  that  no  one,  not  favoured  with  the  light  of  inspira- 
tion, had  become  morally  virtuous  or  had  been  saved.  Being  aware  that 
Socrates  was  one  of  the  most  perfect  characters  ever  originated  amid 
heathen  darkness,  he  read  all  that  remains  on  record  of  this  man's  life 
and  teachings,  and  did  this  for  the  express  purpose  of  being  able  to 
discover  and  designate  the  fundamental  moial  and  religious  defects  in 


A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


his  character.  Instead  of  finding  what  he  anticipated,  he  was  forced  to 
confess  to  himself  that  Socrates  was  both  a  wise  and  good  man,  and  that 
he  is  now,  as  he  hoped  to  be  when  he  was  dying,  '  among  the  blessed.' 
From  that  time  onward  we  have  not  hesitated  to  avow  the  opinion  which 
we  here  record. 

The  Socratic  evolution  in  Philosophy  produced  three  great  central 
lights — Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle.  In  a  moral  point  of  view,  Plato, 
in  our  judgment,  ranks  with  Socrates,  Of  Aristotle  we  cannot  thus 
speak.  Yet  our  heart  is  moved  with  melting  hope  towards  him  when  we 
consider  his  dying  exclamation — to  wit,  *  I  was  born  in  sin ;  I  have  lived 
unhappily,  and  I  die  in  perturbation.  Cause  of  causes,  pity  me.'  Would 
that  modern  scientists,  who  have  far  less  profoundly  studied  the  problem 
of  being  and  its  laws  than  Aristotle,  had  his  humility,  wisdom,  and 
integrity.  When,  from  the  moral  standpoint,  we  contemplate  the  two 
men,  Plato  and  Aristotle — while  we  are  constrained  to  admit  that  the 
latter  was  far  more  correct  in  his  method  of  induction  and  deduction,  and 
taught,  perhaps,  quite  as  many  truths  and  fewer  errors  than  the  former, 
we  would  rather  err  with  Plato  than  hold  the  truth  with  Aristotle. 

Socrates  was  born  in  Athens  about  the  year  470,  and  died  about  400  ao. 
At  the  time  when  he  assumed  the  functions  of  a  public  teacher.  Scepticism 
was  the  prevailing  belief  of  the  people,  of  the  most  intelligent  especially, 
and  Philosophy,  degraded  by  the  flippant  puns  of  the  Sophists,  had 
ceased  to  be  a  grave  and  serious  matter  of  thought  and  inquiry.  Scepticism, 
the  fundamental  principle  or  assumption  of  which  is  that  the  basis  of  all 
Philosophy  is  absolute  nescience,  and  that  the  elements  of  the  entire 
superstructure  are  wholly  extracted  from  *  air  nothing,'  becomes  and  can 
become,  in  every  department  of  thought  and  inquiry,  nothing  but  a 
flippant  trifler,  and  can  do  nothing  for  mankind  but  induce  them  to 
laugh  at  the  infinite  vacuity  in  which  '  proud  science '  has  located  them. 
Years  ago  there  appeared  a  series  of  fictions  denominated  '  Hogg's  Tales.' 
The  tales  ran  in  circles.  The  reader  would  be  started  off  in  a  certain 
direction,  and  that  with  appearances  which  would  excite  expectation  that 
wonderful  disclosures  were  just  ahead.  After  being  carried  round  a  wide 
circuit  with  this  expectation  constantly  increasing,  he  finds  himself  set 
down  at  his  point  of  departure  without  really  having  been  shown  any- 
thing at  all.  He  would  then  be  started  off  again  under  the  same  expec- 
tation, and  after  going  a  similar  round,  would  find  himself  at  his  point 
of  departure  precisely  as  before.  The  final  result  was  a  reaction  which 
induced  a  hearty  laugh.  The  same  holds  true  of  sceptical  thinkers  of  all 
ages,  and  never  more  so  than  with  the  self-styled  Scientists  of  this  age. 
They  do  now,  as  they  did  in  Greece,  present  themselves  to  the  world  aa 
hlone  possessed  of  *  the  key  of  knowledge,'  and  as  being  *  the  knowing 
uues '  of  the  race.     After  laying  down,  as  the  basis  of  all  valid  scientific 


SOCRATES. 


deduction,  the  proposition  that  we  *  don't  know  that  we  don't  know  any- 
thing,' or  *  that  all  our  knowledge  is  mere  appearance,'  and  '  that  the 
reality  existing  behind  all  appearance  is  and  ever  must  be  unknown,'  wo 
are  assured  that  now  the  problem  of  universal  being  and  its  laws  shall 
receive  a  final  solution,  that  the  era  for  demonstrative  certainty  has 
arrived,  that  *  as  surely  as  every  future  grows  out  of  the  past  and  present, 
80  will  the  physiology  of  the  future  gradually  extend  the  realm  of  matter 
and  of  law  until  it  is  co-extensive  with  knowledge,  with  feeling,  and  with 
action,'  that '  matter  and  law  will  devour  spirit  and  spontaneity,'  and  that 
'thought  is  the  expression  of  molecular  changes  in  the  matter  of  life.' 
After  being  carried  round  such  a  circle  with  expectation  on  tip-toe  of 
attaining  '  the  revelation  of  absolute  truth,'  we  are  at  length  set  down 
exactly  at  our  point  of  departure,  being  assured  that  *  it  is  certain  that 
we  can  have  no  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  either  matter  or  spirit.'  The 
result  is  an  almost  irrepressible  disposition  to  laugh  at  '  the  trick  played 
upon  reason '  in  our  sight.  Just  what  existed  in  Athens  at  the  time  wheu 
Socrates  appeared  upon  the  stage,  and  existed  as  the  result  of  the  scep- 
tical teachings  of  the  Sophists,  we  are  now  witnessing,  as  the  result  of  the 
influence  of  '  the  New  Philosophy,'  in  the  prevailing  flippant  dogmatism, 
want  of  respect  for  truth  and  moral  worth,  the  readiness  with  which 
the  shallowest  sophistry,  if  it  bears  against  the  doctrines  of  God,  duty, 
and  immutability,  determines  the  popular  faith,  and  the  consequent 
appalling  revelation  of  an  utter  want  of  trustworthiness  in  almost  every 
department  of  life.  The  admonition  of  Socrates  to  his  countrymen, 
relative  to  the  Sophists  of  that  age,  has  place  relatively  to  the  Sophists  of 
our  own.  Sophists  who  commend  themselves  to  our  regard  as  the  disciples 
and  expounders  of  the  '  New  Philosophy.' 

*  Is  not,  0  Hippocrates,  a  Sophist,  a  seller  or  vendor  of  the  articles  on 
which  the  soul  is  fed  I     He  seems  to  me  to  be  something  of  that  kind.' 

*  What,  Socrates,  is  the  soul  fed  1     Pray,  on  what  V 

*  On  the  lessons  of  teachers,  and  we  must  take  care  that  the  Sophist 
does  not  cheat  us  in  selling  his  wares,  as  the  sellers  of  food  for  the  body 
often  do.  For  they,  without  knowing  what  is  good  for  the  body,  praise 
all  their  wares  alike,  and  the  buyer  knows  just  as  little,  except  he  be  a 
physician  or  a  training-master.  And  just  so  these  vendors  of  lessons, 
who  carry  their  wares  about  from  city  to  city,  and  sell  them  to  every  one 
whom  they  can  persuade  to  buy,  praise  all  the  articles  which  they  sell ; 
but  very  likely  some  of  these,  too,  know  very  little  what  is  good  for 
the  soul  and  what  is  not ;  and  the  buyers  know  just  as  little,  except  any 
of  them  be  soul-physicians.  If,  then,  you  are  a  judge  of  what  is  good  iu 
this  way,  and  what  is  not,  you  may  safely  buy  lessons  of  Protagoras  or  of 
any  one  elsa  But  if  not,  take  care,  my  good  friend,  that  you  do  not  run 
a  dreadful  risk  in  a  vital  concern ;  for  there  is  far  more  danger  in  buying 
lessons  than  in  buying  victuals.' 


A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


It  was  in  the  midst  of  the  trifling  flippancy  of  a  sceptical  age,  and  just 
as  a  reaction  against  the  influence  of  the  Sophists  had.  commenced,  that 
Socrates  appeared  as  a  teacher  of  truth.  The  central  peculiarity  of  his 
character  was  an  absolute  respect  for  truth,  and  a  corresponding  assurance 
that  the  human  Intelligence  is  a  faculty  of  valid  knowledge.  With  him 
'  life  was  real,  life  was  earnest,'  and  the  questions,  what  am  1 1 — where 
am  I? — what  ought  I  to  do,  and  to  become? — and  what  is  my  eternal 
destiny  ]  were  all  solvable  questions.  Mind  is  not  encircled  with  illu- 
sions, but  realities,  realities  known  and  knowable,  and  through  a  known 
creation  man  may  find  God,  as  the  known  Creator  and  Governor  of  the 
universe.  Socrates  was  not,  as  some  represent,  like  Confucius,  a  mere 
teacher  of  morals,  but  of  truth  in  all  its  forms,  and  of  morality  as  the 
great  central  truth  of  all  science.  Up  to  that  time  Philosophy  had  con- 
cerned itself  mainly  with  exterior  problems,  the  maxim  of  true  knowledge, 
'  Know  thyself,'  having  been  disregarded.  Socrates  recalled  Philosophy  to 
a  consideration  of  the  interior  and  weightier  problems  which  the  central 
facts  of  mind,  those  of  its  moral  nature,  especially,  present.  True  Philo- 
sophy has  its  moral  and  religious  sides,  as  well  as  its  physical,  and  the 
former  excel  the  latter,  as  the  infinite  excels  the  finite.  So  Socrates 
regarded  and  treated  these  two  classes  of  problems. 

Common-Sense. 

Socrates  was  to  his  age  what  Reid,  Beattie,  Stewart,  and  Jouffroy  are 
to  our  own,  the  veritable  philosopher  of  Common-sense.  This  term  or 
phrase,  which  fur  the  first  time  appears  in  this  Treatise,  we  will  permit 
the  individual  last  named  to  define  for  us.  '  The  history  of  Philosophy 
presents  a  singular  spectacle:  a  certain  number  of  problems  are  reproduced 
at  every  epoch  ;  each  of  these  problems  suggests  a  certain  number  of  solu- 
tions, always  the  same;  philosophers  are  divided,  discussion  is  set  ou 
foot,  every  opinion  is  attacked  and  defended,  with  equal  appearance  of 
truth.  Humanity  listens  in  silence,  adopts  the  opinion  of  no  one,  but 
preserves  its  own,  which  is  what  is  called  common-sense.^  '  Everybody 
understands  by  common-sense  a  certain  number  of  principles  and  notions, 
evident,  of  themselves,  from  which  all  men  derive  the  grounds  of  their 
judgments,  and  the  rules  of  their  conduct.  But  it  is  not  sufficiently 
known  that  these  principles  are  merely  positive  solutions  of  all  the  great 
problems  which  Philosophy  agitates.'  'Common-sense,  therefore,  is 
nothing  but  a  collection  of  solutions,  to  those  questions  which  philoso- 
phers agitate.  It  is  another  Philosophy,  prior  to  Philosophy  properly  so 
called,  since  it  is  found  spontaneously  at  the  bottom  of  every  conscious- 
ness, independently  of  all  scientific  research.  There  are,  accordingly,  two 
votes  on  the  questions  which  interest  humanity,  namely,  that  of  the  mass 
and  that  of  the  philosophers  ;  the  spontaneous  vote  and  the  scientific  vote, 


SOCRA  TES.  223 


common-sense  and  the  systems.'  '  If  we  compare  the  solution  given  by 
common-sense  to  any  problem  whatever  with  the  different  solutions  which 
have  been  proposed  by  philosophers,  we  shall  always  find  that  the  solu- 
tion proposed  by  common-sense  is  more  comprehensive  than  the  philo- 
sophical solutions.  This  may  be  proved  by  examples.  Zeno  defined 
good,  that  which  is  in  accordance  with  reason ;  Epicurus,  an  agreeable 
sensation ;  Kant,  that  which  is  obligatory.  Common-sense  adopts  all 
these  opinions,  and  for  that  reason  cannot  be  confined  to  any  of  them. 
The  exclusive  Spiritualists  affirm  the  existence  of  spirit ;  the  exclusive 
Materialists,  that  of  matter ;  but  the  former  end  with  denying  matter, 
and  the  second  with  denying  spirit..  Common-sense  equally  admits  both 
matter  and  spirit,  and  places  itself  in  contradiction  to  each  of  these 
systems.  The  empirics  recognised  no  authentic  sources  of  knowledge 
but  the  eyes  and  the  hands  ;  Descartes  admits  none  but  consciousness  ; 
Plato  and  Kant  make  reason  and  conception  predominate  over  that  which 
can  be  attained  by  the  sense  or  consciousness ;  common-sense  acknow- 
ledges the  authority  of  consciousness,  of  the  senses,  and  of  reason,  at  the 
same  time.  If  we  pursue  the  parallel  in  regard  to  other  questions,  we 
shall  always  find  the  same  result.  We  hence  obtain  this  important  con- 
sequence, that  if  common-sense  does  not  adopt  the  systems  of  philo- 
sophers, it  is  not  because  those  systems  say  one  thing  and  common-sense 
another,  but  because  these  systems  say  less,  while  common-sense  says 
more.' 

Now,  as  long  as  Philosophy  shall  continue  to  place  itself  in  open 
antagonism  to  the  common-sense  of  the  race,  that  is,  to  the  spontaneous 
and  necessary  intuitions  of  the  universal  Intelligence ;  in  other  words 
still,  so  long  as  a  voluntarily  determined  partialism  shall  control  her 
induction  of  facts,  so  long  will  her  proud  creations  be  nothing  but  an 
endless  and  monotonous  succession  of  dissolving  views,  chaos  returning 
in  orderly  intervals,  through  the  lawless  and  wildly  destructive  influence 
of  the  Sceptical  Philosophy.  Philosophic  thought  will  stand  revealed,  as 
employed  in  the  toilsome  and  senseless  labour  of  successively,  without 
improvement  or  modification,  rearing  up,  and  toppling  over,  the  old  and 
rotten  systems  of  Vyasa,  Kapila,  Kanada,  the  Buddhists,  Pythagoras, 
Zeno  of  Elea,  Demoeritus,  and  Protagoras.  Partialism,  if  it  creates  any- 
thing, must  recreate  and  then  destroy  these  identical  systems.  When, 
on  the  other  hand.  Philosophy  shall  accept  the  entire  facts  handed 
over  to  her  by  the  intuitions  of  the  universal  Intelligence,  and  shall 
accept  of  these  facts  as  given,  when  she  shall  repudiate  nothing  thus 
given,  and  assume  nothing  not  thus  given,  when  she  shall  find  the  prin- 
ciples implied  by  these,  and  separate  from  the  same,  all  assumptions  of 
every  kind,  and  when,  finally,  the  entire  deductions  necessarily  resulting 
from  these  facts  and  principles  shall  be  presented  to  the  world  as  verities 


224  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

of  science,  then  we  shall  have  a  philosophy  of  being  and  its  laws  which 
will  stand  the  test  of  ages,  a  system  of  such  transcendent  beauty  and 
perfection,  that  even  the  infinite  and  eternal  Mind  shall  have  no  occasion 
to  be  ashamed  of  it.  Within  the  circle  of  the  intuitions  under  considera- 
tion lies  the  rock  of  eternal  truth.  Every  man-constructed  system  that 
*  shall  fall  upon  that  rock  will  be  broken,  and  upon  whatsoever  systems 
it  shall  fall  it  will  grind  them  to  powder.' 

Thb  Era  of  the  Public  Teaching  op  Socrates. 
It  was,  we  repeat,  amidst  the  decay  and  disappearance  of  grave  philo- 
sophic thought  among  the  Greeks,  and  when  the  reaction  against  the 
teachings  of  the  Sophists  had  commenced,  that  Socrates  appeared  as  the 
expounder  and  advocate  of  truth,  the  philosopher  of  Common-sense, 
the  interpreter  of  interior  as  well  as  of  exterior  facts  and  principles.  His 
first  object  was  a  refutation  of  the  principles  and  reasonings  of  the 
Sophists,  or  Sceptics,  and  thus  to  destroy  their  influence  with  the  people. 
Here  we  have  what  may  be  called  his  disproof,  or  the  negative  side  of  his 
system.  Something,  even  the  Sophists,  in  common  with  all  Sceptics, 
admitted,  may  be  known.  In  other  words,  the  Intelligence,  relative  to 
some  realities,  to  say  the  least,  the  fact  of  nescience,  for  example,  is  a 
faculty,  and  they  are  to  it  objects  of  real  knowledge.  This  is  the  common 
postulate  of  all  systems,  the  point  from  which  they  all  in  common  take 
their  departure.  You,  yourself,  admit,  Socrates  would  say  to  the  Sophist, 
that  something,  your  doubts,  at  least,  are  knowable  and  known  verities. 
Why  do  you  affirm  these  to  be  objects  of  valid  knowledge  ?  But  one 
answer  could  be  given,  to  wit,  I  am  conscious  of  doubting.  If  you  admit 
the  fact  of  doubt  to  be  real,  because  you  are  conscious  of  doubting,  then, 
Socrates  would  add,  you  must  admit  the  reality  of  any  other  fact  or  form 
of  being,  which  is  to  you  an  object  of  the  same  conscious  knowledge. 
In  short,  you  must  admit  the  fact  of  your  own  personal  existence,  as 
exercising  the  functions  of  thought,  feeling,  and  willing.  Nor  can  you 
stop  here.  You  have  the  same  absolute  consciousness  of  knowing  your 
<iwn  body  and  the  universe  around  you,  as  veritable  objects  of  actual 
knowledge.  'Man,'  says  the  Sophist,  'is  the  cri*^^erion  of  that  which 
exists.'  Granted,  replied  Socrates.  Look,  then,  into  mind,  and  read  its 
thoughts,  feelings,  and  activities,  especially  the  facts  of  its  moral  nature, 
and  thus  learn  what  the  soul  is.  liead  the  forms  of  knowledge  of  which 
it  is  consciously  possessed.  Thus  he  not  only  silenced  Scepticit^m,  but 
brought  back  public  thought  to  self-reflection,  and  to  a  proper  considera- 
tion of  the  soul.  Of  all  the  philosophers,  Socrates  was  the  first  who  made 
the  soul,  its  relations,  duties,  and  destiny,  one  of  the  central  problems  in 
Philosophy.  Socrates,  in  the  beautiful  and  impressive  language  of 
Cicero,  *  brought  Philosophy  down  from  heaven  to  earth,  and  introduced 


60CRA7ES.  225 

it  into  the  cities  and  houses  of  men,  compelling  men  to  inquire  concern- 
ing life  and  morals,  and  things  good  and  evil.' 

Thb  Method  of  SocRATEa 

Socrates,  also,  first  of  all  philosophers,  popularized  the  inductive  method 
of  inquiry  and  deduction,  the  method  of  reasoning  from  facts  to  prin- 
ciples, from  phenomena  to  substance,  from  events  to  causes,  and  from  the 
conditioned  to  the  unconditioned.  In  his  argument  for  the  being  and 
government  of  God,  for  example,  he  has  fully  anticipated  Paley,  with  the 
addition  that  Socrates  did  what  Paley  forgot  to  do  :  adduced  the  central 
facts  of  mind,  as  having  a  fundamental  bearing  upon  the  problem.  We 
will  here  present  an  example  of  the  reasoning  of  Socrates  upon  this  sub- 
ject, an  example  recorded  by  Xeuophon,  and  thus  translated  by  Mr. 
Lewes.  Before  giving  the  extract,  we  would  direct  special  attention  to  a 
demonstrably  evident  postulate  strictly  common,  and  distinctly  recognized 
in  all  the  philosophical  schools  of  Greece,  those  of  Idealism  not  excepted. 
All  recognized  the  fact  of  the  origin  of  the  present  universe  as  an  event  of 
time.  To  this  statement,  as  we  shall  see,  Aristotle  is  an  exception.  The 
primal  state  of  the  universe  was  an  undeveloped  form  of  spiritual  essence, 
or  a  chaos  of  material  elements.  This,  we  also  observe,  is  the  common 
postulate  of  all  hypotheses  ever  presented  by  human  thought,  of  the  origin 
and  genesis  of  the  universe  as  it  now  is.  All  start  with  the  idea  of  a 
beginning  in  time.  The  following  is  the  statement  of  this  postulate  as 
given  in  the  Tiraaeus :  'Let  this  universe  be  called  heaven^  or  the  world, 
or  by  any  other  name  that  it  usually  receives ;  and  let  us,  in  the  first 
place,  consider  respecting  it,  what  ought  to  be  investigated  at  the  very  out- 
set of  our  proposed  inquiry  about  the  universe — whether  it  always  existed, 
having  no  beginning,  or  was  generated,  beginning  from  some  commence- 
ment. It  is  generated.*  Anti-theism,  in  our  age,  may  and  must  take  one 
of  two  positions — that  the  universe  has  existed  from  eternity,  or  took 
form  and  order,  as  an  event  of  time.  The  first  position  is  confronted  by 
the  intuitive  convictions  of  the  race,  and  all  the  palpable  facts  of  the 
universe.  The  second  presents,  as  we  have  formerly  shown,  for  Anti- 
theism,  this  great  problem.  Given  the  primal  elements  of  nature, 
■whatever  they  may  be,  in  an  undeveloped  state,  or  in  that  of  universal 
chaos,  to  explain  from  laws  eternally  existing  in  said  elements,  the 
universe  organized  as  it  now  is.  Universal  order  and  development  from 
such  a  cause  is  no  more  conceivable,  or  explicable,  than  is  an  event  with- 
out a  cause. 

The  argument  of  Socrates  is  this ;  creation  from  a  primal  chaos,  or  as 
an  event  of  time,  is  explicable  but  upon  one  exclusive  hypothesis — the 
creative  agency  of  a  personal  God.  Here,  aside  from  the  fact  stated 
above,  we   notice  the  perfection  which   characterizes  the  argument  of 

15 


226  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Socrates,  and  the  fundamental  defect  in  that  of  Paley,  and  all  who  follow 
him.  Paley  argues  from  mere  facts  of  order,  without  basing  his  argu- 
ment fundamentally  upon  the  undeniable  fact  of  the  origin  of  order  as  an 
event  of  time.  Socrates,  in  fact  and  form,  argues  from  a  universe 
organized  in  time  to  a  creative  power  out  of  and  above  nature.  We  now 
present  the  extract  referred  to  : 

*  I  will  now,'  says  Xenophon,  *  relate  the  manner  in  which  I  once 
heard  Socrates  discussing  with  Aristoderaus '  (a  Sophist  or  Sceptic)  *  con- 
cerning the  Deity ;  for,  observing  that  he  never  prayed  nor  sacrificed  to 
the  gods,  but,  on  the  contrary,  ridiculed  those  who  did  it,  he  said  to 
him  : 

'  "  Tell  me,  Aristodemus,  is  there  any  man  you  admire  on  account  of 
his  merits  f 

*  Aristodemus  having  answered,  "  Many  "— 
' "  Name  some  of  them,"  said  Socrates. 

*  "  I  admire,"  said  Aristodemus,  "  Homer  for  his  epic  poetry,  Melanip- 
pides  for  his  dithyrambics,  Sophocles  for  his  tragedy,  Polycletus  for  his 
statuary,  and  Zeuxes  for  his  painting." 

*  *'  But  which  seemed  to  you  most  worthy  of  admiration,  Aristoderaus, 
the  artist  who  forms  images  void  of  motion  and  intelligence,  or  one  who 
has  skill  to  produce  animals  that  are  endowed,  not  only  with  activity, 
but  understanding?" 

* "  The  latter,  there  can  be  no  doubt,"  replied  Aristodemus,  "  provided 
the  production  was  not  the  effect  of  chance,  but  of  wisdom  and  con- 
trivance." 

*  "  But  since  there  are  many  things,  some  of  which  we  can  easily  see  the 
use  of,  while  we  cannot  say  of  others  to  what  purpose  they  are  produced, 
which  of  these,  Aristodemus,  do  you  suppose  the  work  of  wisdom  ?" 

'  "  It  would  seem  the  most  reasonable  to  affirm  it  of  those  whose  fitness 
and  utility  are  so  evidently  apparent,"  answered  Aristodemus. 

*  "  But  it  is  evidently  apparent  that  he  who  at  the  beginning  made  man, 
endowed  him  with  senses  because  they  were  good  for  him ;  eyes  to 
behold  what  is  visible,  and  ears  to  hear  what  was  he'ard,  for  say,  Aristo- 
demus, to  what  purpose  should  odour  be  prepared,  if  the  sense  of  smelling 
had  been  denied  %  or  why  the  distinction  of  bitter  or  sweet,  of  savoury  or 
uusavoury,  unless  a  palate  had  been  likewise  given,  conveniently  placed 
to  arbitrate  between  them  and  proclaim  the  difference  ?  Is  not  Provi- 
dence, Aristodemus,  in  a  most  eminent  manner  conspicuous,  which, 
because  the  eye  of  man  is  so  delicate  in  its  contexture,  hath  therefore  pre- 
pared eyelids  like  doors  whereby  to  secure  it,  which  expand  of  them- 
selves whenever  it  is  needful,  and  again  close  when  sleep  approaches  ? 
Are  not  these  eyelids  provided,  as  it  were,  with  a  fence  on  the  edge  of 
them  to  keep  off  the  wind  and  guard  the  eye  ?     Even  the  eyebrow  itself 


SOCRATES.  wj 


is  not  without  its  office,  but,  as  a  pent-house,  is  prepared  to  turn  off  tlie 
sweat,  which,  falling  from  the  forehead,  might  enter  and  annoy  that  no 
less  tender  than  astonishing  part  of  us.  Is  it  not  to  be  admitted  that  the 
ears  should  take  in  sounds  of  every  sort,  and  yet  not  be  too  much  filled 
with  them  ?  That  the  fore-teeth  of  animals  should  be  formed  in  such  ii 
manner  as  is  evidently  best  for  cutting,  and  those  on  the  sides  for  grinding 
it  to  pieces  1  That  the  mouth  through  which  this  food  is  conveyed 
should  be  placed  so  near  the  nose  and  eyes  as  to  prevent  the  passing: 
unnoticed  whatever  is  unfit  for  nourishment,  while  Nature,  on  the  contrary, 
hath  set  at  a  distance  and  concealed  from  them  all  that  might  disgust  or 
any  way  offend  them  ]  And  canst  thou  still  doubt,  Aristodemus,  whether 
a  disposition  of  parts  like  this  should  be  the  work  of  chance  or  of  vrisdom 
and  contrivance]" 

'  "  I  have  no  longer  any  doubt,"  replied  Aristodemus ;  "  and,  indeed,  the 
more  I  consider  it,  the  more  evident  it  appears  to  me  that  man  must  be 
the  masterpiece  of  some  great  artificer,  carrying  along  with  it  infinite 
marks  of  the  love  and  favour  of  Him  who  formed  it." 

* "  But  further  (unless  thou  desirest  to  ask  me  questions),  seeing,  Aristo- 
demus, thou  thyself  art  conscious  of  reason  and  intelligence,  supposest  thou 
there  is  no  intelligence  elsewhere  %  Thou  knowest  thy  body  to  be  a 
small  part  of  that  wide-extended  earth  thou  everywhere  beholdest ;  the 
moisture  contained  in  it  thou  also  knowest  to  be  a  portion  of  that  mighty 
mass  of  waters  whereof  seas  themselves  are  but  a  part,  while  the  rest  of 
the  elements  contribute  out  of  their  abundance  to  the  formation.  It  is 
the  soul,  then,  alone,  that  intellectual  part  of  us,  which  is  come  to  thee 
by  some  lucky  chance,  from  I  know  not  where.  If  so  there  is  no  intelli- 
gence elsewhere,  and  we  must  be  forced  to  confess  that  this  stupendous 
universe,  with  all  the  various  bodies  contained  therein,  equally  amazing, 
whether  we  consider  their  magnitude  or  number,  all  have  been  produced 
by  chance,  not  by  intelligence." 

'  "  It  is  with  difficulty  that  I  can  suppose  otherwise,"  returned  Aristo- 
demus, "  for  I  behold  not  the  gods  whom  you  speak  of  as  framing  and 
governing  the  world ;  whereas  I  see  the  artists  when  at  their  work  here 
among  us." 

*  "  Neither  yet  seest  thoH  thy  soul,  Aristodemus,  which,  however,  most 
assuredly  governs  the  body ;  although  it  may  well  seem,  by  thy  manner 
of  talking,  that  it  is  chance  and  not  reason  which  governs  this." 

' "  I  do  not  despise  the  gods,"  said  Aristodemus  ;  **  on  the  contrary, 
I  conceive  so  highly  of  their  excellency  as  to  suppose  they  stand  in  no 
need  of  me  or  of  my  services." 

* "  Thou  mistakest  the  matter,  Aristodemus ;  the  greater  magnificence 
they  have  shown  in  their  caze  of  thee,  so  much  the  more  honour  and 
service  thou  owest  them," 

15—2 


228  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

*"Be  assured,"  said  Aristodemus,  "if  I  once  could  persuade  myself 
the  gods  take  care  of  man,  I  should  want  no  monitor  to  remind  me  of  my 
duty." 

* "  And  canst  thou  doubt,  Aristodemus,  if  the  gods  take  care  of  man  ? 
Hath  not  the  glorious  privilege  of  walking  upright  been  alone  bestowed 
on  him,  whereby  he  may  with  the  better  advantage  survey  what  is 
around  him,  contemplate  with  more  ease  these  splendid  objects  which  are 
above,  and  avoid  the  numerous  ills  and  inconveniences  which  would 
otherwise  befall  himi  But  it  is  not  with  respect  to  the  body  alone  that 
the  gods  have  shown  themselves  bountiful  to  man.  Their  most  excellent 
gift  is  that  of  a  soul  which  they  have  infused  into  him,  which  so  far  sur- 
passes what  is  elsewhere  to  be  found ;  for  by  what  animal  except  man  is 
even  the  existence  of  the  gods  discovered,  who  have  produced  and  still 
uphold  in  such  regular  order  this  beautiful  and  stupendous  frame  of  tlie 
universe  ?  What  other  creation  is  to  be  formed  that  can  serve  and  adore 
them?  In  this,  Aristodemus,  has  been  joined  to  a  wonderful  soul  a  body 
no  less  wonderful ;  and  say  est  thou,  after  this,  the  gods  take  no  thought 
of  me  %     What  wouldst  thou,  then,  more  to  convince  of  their  care  f 

'  "  I  would  they  should  send  and  inform  me,"  said  Aristodemus,  "  what 
things  I  ought  or  ought  not  to  do,  in  like  manner,  as  thou  sayest,  they 
frequently  do  to  thea" 

* "  And  what  then,  Aristodemus  %  Supposest  thou,  that  when  the 
gods  give  out  some  oracle  to  all  the  Athenians  they  mean  it  not  for  thee  % 
Consider,  my  Aristodemus,  that  the  soul  which  resides  in  thy  body  can 
govern  it  at  pleasure  ;  why  may  not  the  soul  of  the  universe,  which  per- 
vades and  animates  every  part  of  it,  govern  it  in  like  manner  ?  If  thine 
eye  hath  power  to  take  in  many  objects,  and  these  placed  at  no  small 
distance  from  it,  marvel  not  if  the  eye  of  the  Deity  can,  at  one  glance, 
comprehend  the  whole.  And  as  thou  perceivest  it  not  beyond  thy  ability 
to  extend  thy  care,  at  the  same  time,  to  the  concerns  of  Athens,  Egypt, 
Sicily,  why  thinkest  thou,  my  Aristodemus,  that  the  providence  of  God 
may  not  easily  extend  itself  through  the  whole  universe  1 

* "  As,  therefore,  amongst  men  we  make  best  trial  of  the  affection  and 
gratitude  of  our  neighbour  by  showing  him  kindness,  and  make  discovery 
of  his  wisdom  by  consulting  him  in  our  distress,  do  thou,  in  like  manner, 
behave  toward  the  gods ;  and  if  thou  wouldst  experience  what  their 
wisdom  and  their  love,  render  thyself  deserving  of  some  of  those  divine 
secrets  which  may  not  be  penetrated  by  man,  and  are  imparted  to  those 
alone  who  consult,  who  adore,  and  who  obey  the  Deity.  Then  shxlt  thou, 
my  Aristodemus,  understand  there  is  a  Being  whose  eye  passes  through  all 
nature,  and  whose  ear  is  open  to  every  sound;  extends  to  all  places,  extending 
throxLgh  all  time  ;  and  whose  bounty  and  care  can  know  no  other  bounds  than 
those  fixed  by  his  own  creation." ' 


SOCRA  TES.  229 


According  to  Aristotle,  Socrates  introduced  the  method  of  induction 
and  definition,  which,  as  stated  by  Ueberweg,  *  sets  out  from  the  indi- 
vidual and  ends  in  the  definition  of  the  general  notion,'  Had  Plato  and 
Aristotle  strictly  adhered  to  this  method,  the  history  of  Philosopliy 
would  never  have  had  occasion  to  treat  of  the  decline  of  Grecian 
Philosophy. 

Special  Doctrines  Taught  by  Socratei 

Inasmuch  as  this  renowned  world-thinker  first  gave,  to  say  the  least, 
a  distinct  development  and  prominence  to  the  method  of  induction 
among  the  Greeks,  and  stands  before  us  more  distinctly  than  any  other 
ancient  philosopher,  as  the  great  representative  of  the  doctrine,  or  phi- 
losophy, of  Common-sense,  it  becomes  a  matter  of  no  little  interest  to 
determine  clearly  the  most  important  doctrines  which  he  did  teach.  To 
.this  inquiry  we  would,  therefore,  direct  very  special  attention.  In  regard 
to  this  inquiry  we  remark  : 

1.  We  need  not  go  beyond  the  extracts  above  given  to  evince  ab- 
solutely that  he  clearly  and  definitely  distinguished  between  matter  and 
spirit,  and  regarded  them  as  real,  distinct,  and  separate  entities.  No  writer, 
for  example,  more  clearly  and  definitely  distinguished  between  the  soul 
and  the  body,  and  between  the  former  and  all  visible  existences  and 
forms  of  material  organization  in  the  universe  around  us ;  equally  manifest 
is  the  fact,  that  Socrates  also  held  the  doctrine  of  time  and  space,  as 
realities  in  themselves.  Our  knowledge  of  the  four  verities  he  adduces 
as  having  absolute  validity,  and  as  the  basis  for  scientific  deductions 
pertaining  to  the  distinct  and  opposite  nature  and  destiny  of  the  soul  and 
body,  and  also  in  regard  to  the  being,  perfections,  and  government  of 
God.  Socrates,  in  short,  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  term,  and  in  the 
sense  in  which  we  have  defined  the  same,  was  a  Realist. 

2.  With  equal  absoluteness,  Socrates  held  and  taught  the  doctrine  of 
the  being  of  one  supreme,  infinite  and  perfect,  personal  God.  It  would 
be  entirely  superfluous  to  verify  these  statements  by  any  additional  cita- 
tions, citations  which  could  be  readily  multiplied  to  any  extent  desired. 
We  have  here  another  very  important  example  in  verification  of  a  funda- 
mental fact  formerly  asserted,  to  wit:  that,  in  all  ages  in  which  the 
validity  of  our  knowledge  of  Matter  and  Spirit,  and  Time  and  Space,  is 
admitted,  the  doctrine  of  a  personal  God  is  also  affirmed. 

3.  JSTo  thinker,  in  ancient  or  modern  times,  has  more  clearly  recognized 
the  absolute  distinction  between  moral  right  and  wrong,  the  sacredness  of 
duty,  and  ill  desert  of  sin,  than  did  Socratea  So  prominent  were  his 
teachings  on  these  fundamental  subjects,  that,  by  not  a  few  writers  on 
the  history  of  Philosophy,  he  is  regarded  rather  as  a  teacher  of  morals 
than  of  Philosophy.     It  would  be  more  proper  to  affirm  that,  in  his 


230  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

regard,  moral  virtue  was  not  the  only  science,  but  the  science  of  sciences. 
*  The  name  for  the  result  of  a  right  constitution  of  the  body,'  says 
Socrates,  *  seems  to  me  to  be  kealthfulness,  from  which  arise  health  and 
other  bodily  excellences.  And,  in  like  manner,  the  result  of  a  right 
constitution  of  the  soul  is  lawfulness  (that  is,  law-regardingness)  and  law : 
and  by  this  men  are  law-regarding  and  orderly :  and  this  is  justice  and 
self-controL'  *  I  say,  then,  that  if  a  soul  which  is  temperate  is  good,  a 
soul  which  is  intemperate  is  bad.  And  a  temperate  soul,  a  soul  under 
due  control,  will  do  what  is  right  towards  the  gods,  and  towards  men. 
It  would  not  be  under  due  control  if  it  did  not.  Now  what  is  right 
towards  man  is  justice  ;  what  is  right  towards  the  gods  is  piety :  and  he 
who  does  such  things  is  just  and  pious.'  *  The  good  and  the  pleasant  are 
not  identical,'  as  Callicles  argued.  *  Is  the  good  to  be  sought  for  the 
sake  of  the  pleasant,  or  the  pleasant  for  the  sake  of  the  good  1  The 
pleasant  for  the  sake  of  the  good.'  *  Taking  the  two  things,  wrong-doing 
and  wrong-suffering,  we  have  to  say  that  wrong-doing  is  the  greater  evil 
of  the  two.' 

4.  Between  virtue  and  happiness,  and  sin  and  misery,  there  is,  even  in 
this  life,  Socrates  held,  an  inseparable  connection,  and  hence  taught  that 
it  is  better  to  suffer  death  itself,  rather  than  perpetrate  the  least  form  of 
wrong-doing.  His  doctrine  on  this  point  is  thus  stated  by  himself:  'A 
good  and  virtuous  man  or  woman,  I  say,  is  happy,  and  an  unjust  and 
wicked  one,  I  say,  is  miserable.'  '  He  who  does  well  must  be  happy  ; 
and  the  bad  man  who  does  ill  must  be  wretched.'  Hence  his  prudential 
maxim,  that  it  is  better,  more  for  our  real  happiness,  *to  suffer  wrong  than  to 
tlo  wrong.'  The  wicked  may  be  visibly  prosperous  in  and  through  their 
crimes,  and  untold  visible  evils,  even  death,  may  come  upon  the  virtuous  on 
account  of  their  virtues.  Yet  the  former  are  miserable,  and  the  latter 
happy,  even  in  this  life.  The  great  object  of  the  Dialogue  entitled 
'  Gorgias,'  is  to  enforce  this  doctrine  :  *  For  a  good  man  no  event  can  be 
evil,  whether  he  lives  or  dies,  seeing  his  concerns  are  never  disregarded 
by  the  gods.' 

5.  Another  fundamental  doctrine  of  Socrates  was  the  immortality  of 
the  soul.  This  was  a  leading  theme  of  all  his  discourses.  When  asked 
in  what  way  his  friends  should  bury  him,  he  replied,  '  Even  as  you  will, 
if  you  catch  me,  and  I  do  not  give  you  the  slip.'  *  I  cannot  persuade 
Crito,  my  friends,  that  it  is  I  who  am  now  talking  with  you,  and  deter- 
mining what  to  say.  He  thinks  that  I  am  that  dead  body  which  he  will 
soon  see  here,  and  asks  how  he  shall  bury  me.'  *  When  I  have  drunk 
the  poison,  I  shall  be  with  you  no  longer,  but  shall  depart  hence  to  the 
hap[)iness  of  the  blessed.' 

6.  Socrates  not  only  held  and  taught  the  doctrines  of  the  immortality 
of  the  soul,  but  that  of  futuie  retribution.     '  Those  who  have  lived  iu 


SOCRATES.  231 


eminent  holiness  are  taken  from  this  region  as  from  a  prison  and  placed 
in  that  pure  upper  region  of  the  earth.'  *  If  I  did  not  expect  that  I 
should  go  to  the  realms  of  the  wise  and  good  gods,  and  to  the  company 
of  men  better  than  those  who  are  here,  I  should  be  wrong  not  to  grieve 
at  death.  But  be  well  assured  that  I  do  expect  this — that  I  shall  be 
among  good,  though  this  I  do  not  feel  so  confident  about,  but  that  I  shall 
go  to  gods  who  are  good  governors — be  assured  that  if  there  be  anything 
of  this  kind  about  which  I  am  confident,  I  am  confident  of  this.  And 
hence  it  is  that  I  do  not  feel  sorrow,  but  am  full  of  hope,  that  those  who 
have  left  this  life  are  still  in  being,  and  the  good  in  a  better  condition 
than  the  bad.'  On  another  occasion  he  said,  '  I  make  it  my  aim  that  I 
may  appear  before  my  judge  with  my  soul  sound  and  healthy.  I  put 
aside  the  honours  and  objects  of  men  in  general  I  aim  at  truth  alone, 
I  try  to  live,  and  I  shall  try  to  die,  when  the  time  arrives,  as  virtuous  as 
I  can.'  '  But  if  the  soul  depart  from  the  body  polluted  and  impure,  as 
having  always  been  mixed  with  the  body,  and  having  served  it,  and  de- 
lighted in  it ;  and  having  allowed  itself  to  be  bewitched  by  it,  and  its 
desires  and  pleasures ;  so  that  nothing  appeared  to  be  real  which  was 
not  corporeal,  something  that  could  be  touched,  and  seen,  and  eaten,  and 
drunk,  and  used  for  enjoyment;  and  having  always  hated,  and  feared,  and 
shunned  that  which  is  invisible  to  the  bodily  eyes,  the  intellectual  objects 
of  which  Philosophy  aims,  do  you  conceive  that  such  a  soul  can  be  pure 
in  itself,  or  fitted  for  a  region  of  purity  1* 

The  D^mon  op  SocnATES. 

Of  the  Daemon  of  Socrates  much  has  been  written,  and  few  seem  to 
have  attained  to  settled  convictions  in  regard  to  his  views  upon  the 
subject.  The  following  is  his  own  account  of  the  matter  :  *  I  have  a 
divine  Monitor  of  which  Meletus  in  his  indictment  makes  a  charge  in  so 
extravagant  a  manner.  This  Monitor  I  have  had  from  childhood — a 
voice  which  warns  me,  which  constrains  me  constantly  from  what  I  am 
about  to  do,  but  never  urges  me  on  to  do.  This  was  what  stood  in  the 
way  of  my  undertaking  public  aflfairs.'  Because  he  was  not  warned 
against  it,  Socrates,  as  he  himself  aflBrmed,  adhered  to  the  plan  which  he 
had  adopted,  relatively  to  his  defence  in  the  trial  in  which  he  was  con- 
demned to  die,  and  to  his  course  after  that  event.  We  perceive  no 
evidence  whatever  that  he  regarded  his  divine  Monitor  as  a  familiar  spirit. 
As  one,  also,  who  never  had  any  form  of  experience  such  as  Socrates 
professedly  had,  we  would  say  that  we  see  aothiiig  superstitious  or  im- 
probable in  the  above  accouok 


232  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOrHY. 


SECTION  IL 

PLATO. 

Plato,  the  central  figure  in  the  realm  of  Grecian  world-thought,  and  that 
tigure  *  a  thing  of  beauty ' — Plato,  who,  without  having  himself  given  any 
determinable  system  of  Philosophy,  has  imparted  a  more  powerful  impulse 
to  philosophic  thought  than  any  other  ancient  thinker,  was  born  in  Athens 
or  ^gina  428,  and  died  in  the  city  first  named  347  or  348  b.c.  Up  to 
the  time  of  the  death  of  Socrates,  one  of  his  most  devoted  pupils  and 
disciples  was  Plato.  After  the  death  of  his  illustrious  teacher  (399  or 
400  B.O.),  Plato,  with  the  teachers  of  Philosophy,  fled  from  Athens  to 
escape  persecution  and  probable  death,  spent  some  time  with  Euclid  of 
Magara,  then  visited  various  countries,  as  Grecia  Major,  Gyrene,  Egypt, 
and  Asia  Minor,  and  when  about  forty  years  of  age  returned  to  Athens, 
where  he  remained,  with  short  intervals  of  travel,  until  the  time  of  his 
death.  During  this  last  interval  his  time  was  devoted  to  teaching  and 
to  the  preparation  of  his  world-renowned  dialogues.  The  place  where  he 
taught  was  called  the  Academy — the  '  Grove  of  Academus ' — a  gymnasium 
outside  of  the  city,  where  was  a  garden  which  he  had  inherited  from  his 
father.  From  the  Academy  women  were  most  rigorously  excluded,  unless 
stealthily  intruded  in  the  dress  of  men. 

Plato  as  oontrasted  with  Socrates,  Aristotle,  and  Anaxagoras. 

In  all  respects  Plato,  as  a  teacher,  was  diverse  from  Socrates.  The  latter 
spoke  openly  before  the  people,  and  'in  secret  said  nothing.'  The  former 
never,  as  a  teacher,  appeared  in  public,  but  imparted  his  doctiiues  to  a 
select  few,  who  by  previous  intellectual  training  were  prepared  to  receive 
them.  The  teachings  of  the  latter  all  could  readily  understand.  Those 
of  the  former  the  best  thinkers  of  the  world  have  been  studying  for  more 
than  two  thousand  years  without. being  able  to  agree  upon  their  real 
meaning  in  particulars  most  essential.  Socrates  invited  the  aged  and  the 
young,  the  learned  and  the  ignorant,  all  in  common  to  listen  to  his  wit^e 
discourse.  All  who  approached  the  gate  to  the  Academy  saw  over  that 
gate  a  hand-writing  prohibiting  admission  to  all  but  those  who,  by  piiui- 
mental  training,  were  prepared  to  understand  and  appreciate  the  esoteric 
doctrines  of  Philosophy.  Hence,  as  the  philosopher  of  Commou-seiisi , 
the  doctrines  of  Socrates,  in  all  essential  particulars,  remain  as  truths  tor 
all  ages ;  while  the  doctrines  of  Plato,  as  the  results  of  partial  induction. 
were,  in  particulars  equally  essential,  repudiated  by  not  a  few  of  his 


PLA  TO.  233 

immediate  disciples,  and  in  their  original  forms  were  rejected  in  a  subse- 
quent age  by  the  New  Academy. 

In  particulars  equally  essential  Plato  differed  from  his  early  pupil  and 
subsequent  opponent,  Aristotle.  The  method  of  the  latter  was,  in  ii\ct 
and  form,  essentially  inductive.  That  of  the  former  was  as  essentially, 
to  say  the  least,  b,  priori.  Aristotle  deduced  the  general  from  the  in- 
dividual, and  found  all  the  elements  of  the  latter  in  the  former.  Plato, 
as  far  as  science  is  concerned,  began  and  ended  with  the  universal,  or 
deduced  the  ideal  individual  from  the  ideal  universal.  Aristotle  vindicated 
the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  mind  and  the  visible  universe,  and  from 
facts  of  consciousness  and  external  perception,  argued  the  being  and 
immortality  of  the  soul,  the  sacredness  of  the  law  of  Deity,  and  the 
existence  of  God.  With  Plato  the  universe  of  perception  is  a  mere 
becoming  which  never  becomes,  or  *  really  is '  a  something  intermediate 
between  *  being  and  non-being,  and  which  cannot  be  said  either  to  be  or 
not  to  be,'  real  existence  in  all  its  forms,  as  matter,  the  soul,  and  God  as 
'  existences  in  se,'  being  the  exclusive  objects  of  reason  or  h  priori  insight. 
With  Aristotle  nothing  really  exists  but  individual  forms  of  being.  With 
Plato  the  necessary  and  universal  are  the  real,  while  the  individual  is 
that  which  is  always  *  becoming  but  never  is.'  *  Raphael  in  his  school 
of  Athens,'  as  Ueberweg  states,  'represents  Plato  as  pointing  towards 
heaven,  while  Aristotle  turns  his  regard  upon  the  earth.'  We  are  in- 
debted to  Ueberweg,  also,  for  the  following  impressive  representation  by 
Goethe  of  the  characteristics  of  Plato.  *  Plato's  relation  to  the  world  is 
that  of  a  superior  spirit,  whose  good  pleasure  is  to  dwell  in  it  for  a  time. 
It  is  not  so  much  his  concern  to  become  acquainted  with  it — for  the 
world  and  its  nature  are  thiugs  which  he  presupposes — as  kindly  to 
communicate  to  it  that  which  he  brings  with  him,  and  of  which  it  stands 
in  so  much  need.  He  penetrates  into  its  depths  more  that  he  may 
replenish  them  from  the  fulness  of  his  own  nature  than  that  he  may 
fathom  their  mysteries-  He  scales  its  heights  as  one  yearning  after 
renewed  participation  in  the  source  of  his  own  being.  AJl  that  he  utters 
has  reference  to  something  eternally  complete,  good,  true,  beautiful, 
whose  furtherance  he  strives  to  promote  in  every  bosom.  Whatever  of 
earthly  knowledge  he  appropriates  here  and  there,  evaporates  in  his 
method  and  in  his  discourse.' 

In  the  'Phaedo,'  we  have  Plato's  reasons  given  through  Socrates 
idealized,  why  the  former  repudiated  the  teachings  of  Anaxagoras. 
'When  I  heard  that  Anaxagoras  was  teaching  that  it  is  Intelligence 
that  sets  in  order  and  is  the  cause  of  all  things,  I  was  delighted  with 
this  cause,  and  it  appeared  to  me  in  a  manner  to  be  well  that  Intelligence 
should  be  the  cause  of  all  things,  and  I  considered  with  myself,  if  this 
be  so,  then  the  regulating  Intelligence  orders  all  things,  and  disposes  each 


234  ^  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

in  such  a  way  as  is  best  for  it.  If  any  one,  then,  should  desire  to  dis- 
cover  the  cause  of  everything,  in  what  it  is  produced,  or  perishes,  or 
exists,  he  must  discover  this  respecting  it,  in  what  way  it  is  best  for  it 
either  to  exist,  or  to  suffer,  or  to  do  anything  elsa'  *  I  thought  that,  in 
assigning  the  cause  of  each  of  them  and  to  all  in  common '  (the  form 
of  the  earth,  *  the  sun  and  moon,  and  other  stars,  with  respect  to  their 
velocities  in  reference  to  each  other,  and  their  revolutions  and  other 
conditions'),  'he  would  explain  that  which  is  best  for  each,  and  the 
common  good  of  all.  Great  was  my  hope,  and  equally  great  my  disap- 
pointment.' Anaxagoras  inferred  from  the  fact  of  creation  as  an  event  of 
time,  and  from  facts  of  universal  order  everywhere  apparent  in  it,  that 
the  universe  is  the  result  of  contrivance  and  design,  and  is,  consequently, 
the  handiwork  of  a  personal  God,  and  then,  as  a  Theistic  Materialist, 
attempted  to  explain,  not  how  such  a  being  should  create  and  order  all 
things,  but  how,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  did  do  it.  Here  was  the  cause 
of  Plato's  dissatisfaction  with  the  teachings  of  his  renowned  predecessor. 

Flatds  Method. 

"We  will  now  give  Plato's  method  of  induction  and  deduction,  and  do 
it  in  his  own  words.  *  I  was  afraid  lest  I  should  be  hindered  in  my  soul 
through  beholding  things  with  the  eyes,  and  endeavouring  to  grasp  them 
by  means  of  the  several  senses.  It  seemed  to  me,  therefore,  that  I  ought 
to  have  recourse  to  reasons,  and  to  consider  in  them  the  truth  in  things. 
Perhaps,  however,  this  similitude  of  mine  may  in  some  respects  be  in- 
correct ;  for  I  do  not  altogether  admit  that  he  who  considers  things  in 
their  reasons  considers  them  in  their  images,  more  than  he  does  who 
views  them  in  their  effects.  However,  I  proceeded  thus,  and  on  each 
occasion  laying  down  the  reason,  which  I  deem  to  be  the  strongest,  what- 
ever things  appear  to  me  to  accord  with  this  I  regard  as  true,  both  with 
respect  to  the  cause  and  everything  else,  but  such  as  do  not  accord  I 
regard  as  not  true.' 

Here  we  have  a  distinct  and  specific  statement  of  the  method  of  this 
philosopher  as  an  interpreter  of  the  facts  of  the  universe,  and  in  the 
solution  of  the  great  problem  of  being  and  its  laws.  In  the  interior  of 
his  own  mind,  irrespective  of  conscious  and  visible  facts,  he,  first  of  all, 
determined  how  all  things  should  be  ordered,  and  then  considered  what- 
ever things  appeared  to  accord  with  this,  *  both  with  respect  to  the  cause 
of  everything  else,  as  true,  but  such  as  did  not  accord,  as  not  true.'  In 
fixed  accordance,  as  we  shall  show,  with  this  fixed  and  avowed  method, 
Plato  did  attempt  a  solution  of  this  problem.  No  one  who  does  not 
explain  Plato  from  this,  his  own  definitely  avowed  standpoint,  will  explain 
Lim  as  he  was. 

That  we  may  not  appear  to  have  deduced  our  idea  of  the  method  of 


I 


PLATO.  235 

Plato  from  a  single  passage,  we  present  another  citation,  the  meauing  of 
which  cannot  be  misunderstood.  *  Bat  what  with  respect  to  tlie  acquisi- 
tion of  wisdom  is  the  body  an  impediment  or  not,  if  anyone  takes  it  with 
him  in  the  search  ?  What  I  mean  is  this  :  Do  sight  and  hearing  convey 
any  truth  to  men,  or  are  they  such  as  the  poets  constantly  sing,  who  say 
that  we  neither  hear  nor  see  anything  with  accuracy  1  If,  however,  tliete 
bodily  senses  are  neither  accurate  nor  clear,  much  less  can  the  others  be 
so,  for  they  are  all  inferior  to  these.  Do  they  not  seem  so  to  you  V — 
'  Certainly,'  he  replied. — *  When  then,'  said  he,  *  does  the  soul  light  on 
truth  ?  for  when  it  attempts  to  consider  anything  in  conjunction  with  the 
body,  it  is  plain  that  it  is  then  led  astray  by  it.' — '  You  say  truly.' — 
'Must  it  not  then  be  by  reasoning,  if  at  all,  that  any  of  the  things  that 
really  are  (any  form  of  real  existence)  becomes  known  to  it  X — '  Yes.' — 
*  And  surely  the  soul  then  reasons  best  when  none  of  these  things  disturb 
it,  neither  hearing,  nor  sight,  nor  pain,  nor  pleasure  of  auy  kind,  but  it 
retires  as  much  as  possible  within  itself,  taking  leave  of  the  body,  antl, 
as  far  as  it  can,  not  communicating  or  being  in  contact  with  it,  it  aims  at 
the  discovery  of  that  which  is  ?' — *  Such  is  the  case.' — '  Does  not  the  soul 
of  the  philosopher,  in  these  cases,  despise  the  body  and  flee  from  it,  and 
seek  to  retire  within  itself?' — *  It  appears  so.' 

*  Would  not  he,  then,  do  this  with  the  utmost  purity  1'  (discover  what 
does  and  does  not  exist)  *who  should  in  the  highest  degree  approach 
each  subject  by  means  of  the  mere  mental  faculties,  neither  employing 
sight  in  conjunction  with  the  reflective  faculty,  nor  introducing  any  other 
sense  together  with  reasoning,  but  who,  using  pure  reflection  by  itself, 
should  attempt  to  search  out  each  essence  by  itself,  freed  as  much  as 
possible  from  the  eyes  and  ears,  and,  in  a  word,  from  the  whole  body  as 
disturbing  the  soul,  and  not  suS'ering  it  to  acquire  truth  and  wisdom 
when  it  is  in  communion  with  it  ?  Is  not  he  the  person,  if  any  one  can, 
who  will  arrive  at  the  knowledge  of  that  which  is  f  To  this  question  a 
most  absolute  and  emphatic  affirmative  answer  is  returned. 

It  is  undeniable  that  Plato  borrowed  his  method  of  philosophizing 
from  the  Orientalists,  and  that  modern  Transcendentalists  borrowed 
theirs  from  Plato.  We  are  now  prepared  to  consider  the  solution  which 
Plato  has  given  us  of  the  great  problem  under  consideration,  that  of 
universal  being  and  its  laws.' 

General  Characteristics  op  Plato  as  a  Thinker. 
If  we  should  form  our  judgment  of  Plato  as  a  thinker  and  writer  from 
the  multitudinous  expositions  which  have  been  given  of  his  teachings,  we 
should  regard  him  as  one  of  the  most  self-contradictory  and  least  under- 
stood authors  that  ever  existed.  One  class  represent  him  as  the  '  great 
Idealist,'  another  as  the  great  expounder  of  Theism,  and  kindred  doc> 


236  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

trines,  "while  others  still  regard  him  as  a  mystic,  and  the  author  of  *  a 
poetical  philosophy.'  In  regard  to  doctrines  which  were,  with  Plato 
himself,  of  fundamental  interest,  and  which  he  has  most  extensively 
discussed,  authors  of  the  greatest  eminence  give  perfectly  distinct  and 
opposite  expositions  of  his  views.  With  one  class  of  writers,  for  example, 
Plato's  Ideas  are  archetypes  in  the  divine  mind,  archetypes  after  which 
God  organized  the  universe ;  with  others  the  same  '  Ideas  are  not  the 
thought  of  God,  but  objects  of  bis  thought.*  Some  represent  these  Ideas, 
as  in  the  judgment  of  Plato  created  archetypes,  while  others  affirm  that 
he  regarded  them  as  eternal  and  immutable.  We  shall  not  stop  here  to 
explain  the  reason  for  this  diversity  of  exposition.  It  may  be  that 
Plato  did  in  different  dialogues  unconsciously  contradict  himself.  It 
may  be,  also,  that  at  one  period  of  his  life  he  held  one  view,  and  an 
opposite  one  at  a  later  period,  and  that  in  his  successive  dialogues  we 
have  a  record  of  these  successive  changes  in  his  own  apprehensions.  It 
may  be,  also,  that  in  attempting,  as  an  eclectic,  to  extract  from  existing 
systems  the  elements  of  truth  which  he  supposed  to  dwell  in  each,  he 
failed,  as  eclectics  generally  do,  to  construct  a  harmonious  system  of  his 
own.  *  The  Socratic  doctrine,'  says  Dr.  Dollinger,  *  of  the  absolute  good 
and  beautiful,  and  of  Deity  revealing  himself  to  man  as  a  kind  Provi- 
dence, formed  the  basis  on  which  he  started,  as  channels  for  the 
Heraclitic  doctrine  of  the  perpetual  coming  into  being  and  flux  of  all 
things,  together  with  the  Eleatic  of  the  eternal  immutability  of  the  one 
and  only  Being.  The  dogma  of  Anaxagoras  of  a  world-ruling  spirit  was 
serviceable  to  him,  and  with  it  he  had  the  skill  to  connect  the  Pytha- 
gorean view  of  the  universe,  as  an  animated  intelligent  whole,  in  a 
spiritualized  form.'  No  wonder  that  an  individual  who  undertook  to 
construct  a  harmonious  system  out  of  such  incongruous  materials,  should 
contradict  himself,  and  should,  as  Dr.  Hodge  has  well  observed,  '  speak  at 
one  time  as  a  Theist  and  at  another  as  a  Pantheist.'  While  authors  thus 
differ  in  regard  to  the  real  teachings  of  Plato  on  certain  subjects,  there 
are  others  of  equal  importance  about  which  no  such  diversity  obtains. 
We  propose,  in  our  own  expositions,  to  begin  with  what  is  admitted  to 
be  plain  and  explicable,  and  from  these  to  advance  to  a  consideration  of 
what  appears  to  be  obscure  and  of  doubtful  significance.  Among  the 
doctrines  of  the  former  class  we  specify  the  following : 

Doctrines,  which,  as  all  authorities  admit,  Plato  did  hold 

and  teach. 

1  Plato  held  and  taught  the  doctrine  of  the  real  existence  of  spirit 
and  matter,  as  distinct  and  opposite  substances.  God  and  matter  he  held 
to  be  eternally  existing  and  separate  forms  of  being.  Matter,  to  be  sure, 
as  Plato  defines  it,  is  almost  without  properties,  *  an  invisible  species  and 


PLATO.  237 

formless  universal  receiver,'  or  a  mere  receptacle  of  forms.  Being  '  itself 
imperishable,  it  famishes  a  seat  to  all  that  is  produced,'  and  must  be 
'somewhere,  and  occupy  a  certain  space.'  The  existence  of  such  a 
substratum  is  a  condition  necessary,  according  to  Plato,  to  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  visible  universe.  That  Plato  also  believed  in  the  soul,  as  a 
real  existence,  need  not  be  confirmed  by  more  than  a  single  citation.  The 
doctrine  of  the  human  soul  as  an  immaterial  and  spiritual  principle,  dis- 
tinct from  the  body  and  all  material  forms,  is  the  leading  theme  of  all  his 
teachings  *  The  Deity  himself,'  says  Plato,  *  formed  the  divine,  and  he 
delivered  over  to  his  celestial  oflFspring  the  task  of  forming  the  mortal. 
These  subordinate  deities,  copying  the  example  of  their  parent,  and  receiv- 
ing from  his  hands  the  immortal  principle  of  the  human  soul,  fashioned 
subsequently  to  this  the  mortal  body,'  which  they  consigned  to  the  soul 
as  a  vehicle,  and  in  which  they  placed  another  kind  of  soul,  mortal,  the 
seat  of  violent  and  fatal  affections.'  The  rational  soul,  he  held  to  be,  not 
only  possessed  of  intelligence,  but  of  the  power  of  self-moved  or  free 
activity.  *  Self-activity,'  he  says,  *  is  the  very  essence  and  true  motion  of 
the  souL' 

2.  Plato  also  held  and  taught  the  doctrine  of  the  being  and  universal 
providence  of  an  infinite,  and  perfect,  personal  God.  The  organization  of 
the  universe,  he  held,  as  we  have  before  shown,  to  be  an  event  which 
occurred  in  time,  and  implies  creation  through  the  agency  of  a  supreme 
Intelligence.  Having  stated,  that  originally  the  elements  of  universal 
nature  existed  '  irrationally  and  without  measure,'  that  is,  in  a  state  of 
total  chaos,  he  adds  :  'And  let  us  above  all  things  hold,  and  ever  hold, 
that  the  Deity  made  them  as  far  as  possible  the  most  beautiful  and  the 
best,  when  before  they  were  in  a  totally  different  condition.'  Plato  was 
no  Pantheist,  though  he  sometimes  speaks  as  if  he  were  one.  The  doc- 
trines of  the  eternal  co-existence  of  spirit  and  matter,  of  the  organization, 
by  the  power  of  God,  of  the  universe  from  a  primal  chaos,  and  that  as  an 
event  of  time,  and  of  a  diArine  providential  government  over  the  realm  of 
matter,  on  the  one  hand,  and  a  moral  government  over  a  realm  of  free 
moral  and  spiritual  agents,  on  the  other.  These,  and  other  kindred  doc- 
trines, locate  Plato  and  the  Pantheist  at  an  infinite  remove  from  one 
another. 

Nor  was  Plato,  in  any  proper  sense  of  the  term,  an  Idealist.  Idealism 
denies  wholly  the  reality  of  a  material  creation,  and  resolves  all  existences 
into  spirit,  or  its  operations.  While  Plato  fully  believed  in  the  ideality 
of  the  world  of  perception,  he  held,  that  behind  the  phenomenal  there 
existed  a  realm  of  spiritual  existences,  and  also  a  material  creation,  a 
creation  not  perceived  through  the  senses,  but  knowable  and  known 
through  Reason.  We  may  dispute  his  psychology,  but  cannot  justly  deny 
that  he  was  a  Realist 


23»  ^  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

That  Plato  held  not  only  to  the  personality  of  God,  but  also  to  His 
infinity  and  perfection,  is  perfectly  manifest  from  the  passage  cited  rela- 
tively to  his  theistic  teachitigs,  in  the  article  on  *  the  Eeligions  of  the 
Greeks.'  Nothing  further  need  to  be  added  upon  this  subject  in  this 
connection. 

3.  While  Plato  held  that  no  man  is  •  willingly  evil,'  that  is,  chooses 
evil  for  its  own  sake,  no  ancient  thinker  ever  taught  with  more  distinct- 
ness and  force  than  he  did,  the  absolute  distinction  between  the  right  and 
the  wrong,  the  sacredness  of  the  law  of  duty,  the  desert  of  virtue,  and 
the  demerit  of  sin.  While  he  regarded  mercy  as  an  attribute  of  God,  one 
of  the  problems  which  he  was  avowedly  unable  to  solve,  is  the  compati- 
bility of  the  forgiveness  of  sin  with  the  attribute  of  justice  in  God.  In 
God  every  form  of  moral  virtue  exists  in  absolute  perfection.  Moral 
virtue  in  man  consists  in  moral  resemblance  to  God.  *  This  flight,'  he 
says,  '  consists  in  resembling  God,  and  this  resemblance  is  the  becoming 
just  and  holy  with  wisdom.' 

Sin,  on  the  other  hand,  consists  in  the  enslavement  of  the  will  to  the 
lower  propensities,  a  state  in  which  '  pleasures  and  pains  are  unduly 
magnified  ;  the  democracy  of  the  passions  prevail,  and  the  ascendency  of 
reason  is  cast  down.'  This  doctrine  of  Plato,  that  moral  evil  is  never 
chosen  for  its  own  sake,  that  the  conscience  is  immutably  on  the  side  of 
the  right  and  against  the  wrong,  and  that  in  their  moral  nature  all  meu 
approve  the  right  when  they  refuse  obedience  to  the  law  of  duty,  and 
hate  the  wrong  while  they  perpetrate  it,  is  a  doctrine  most  common,  even 
among  the  heathen.  Lactantius  represents  the  heathen  as  saying,  'I  prefer, 
indeed,  not  to  sin,  but  I  am  overcome ;  for  I  am  possessed  of  a  fragile 
nature.  I  am,  therefore,  led  on  as  one  uncertain,'  that  is,  blinded  by 
passion,  'and  I  sin  not  because  I  prefer  it,  but  because  I  am  impelled  (by 
passion).  '  I  knew,'  says  one,  '  that  it  was  becoming,  but  me,  miserable  ! 
I  could  not  do  it.' 

*  I  know,'  says  Euripides,  '  that  such  things  as  I  am  about  to  do  are 
evil,  but  my  mind  is  better  than  my  inclinations.'  *  I  perceive  and 
approve  the  right,'  says  another,  •  but  follow  the  wrong.' 

The  leading  aim  of  life,  as  Plato  afl&rms,  should  be  the  purification  of 
the  soul  from  the  dominion  of  evil  principles  and  propensities,  and  the 
recovery  of  its  lost  likeness  to  God.  '  If  the  soul  is  immortal,'  he  says, 
'  it  requires  our  care  not  only  for  the  present  time,  which  we  call  life,  but 
for  all  time  \  and  the  danger  would  now  appear  to  be  dreadful  if  one 
should  neglect  it.  For  if  death  were  a  deliverer  from  everything,  it 
would  be  a  great  gain  for  the  wicked,  when  they  die,  to  be  delivered  at 
the  same  time  from  the  body  and  from  their  vices  together  with  the 
soul ;  but  now,  since  it  appears  to  be  immortal,  it  can  liave  no  other 
refuge  from  evils  nor  safety  except  by  becoming  as  good  and  wise  as 
possible.' 


PL  A  TO.  239 

4.  A  leading  doctrine  and  therae  of  Plato,  as  all  admit,  is  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul.  While  the  main  basis  of  his  argument  to  prove  the 
doctrine  none  now  regard  as  valid,  the  doctrine  itself  is  set  forth  in  his 
writings  with  most  impressive  distinctness. 

5.  With  the  doctrine  of  a  future  life  for  the  soul,  Plato  connected  that 
of  retribution  according  to  moral  desert.  *  But  when,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  soul  shall  remain,  having  an  intercourse  with  divine  virtue,  it 
becomes  divine  pre-eminently;  and  pre-eminently,  after  having  been 
conveyed  to  a  place  entirely  holy,  it  is  changed  for  the  better ;  but  when 
it  acts  in  a  contrary  manner,  it  has  under  contrary  circumstances  placed 
its  existence  in  some  unholy  spot.  This  is  the  judgment  of  the  gods 
•who  hold  Olympus.  '  O  thou  young  man '  (know)  *  that  the  person 
who  has  become  more  wicked,  departs  to  the  more  wicked  souls  ;  but  he 
■who  has  become  better,  to  the  better  both  in  life  and  in  all  deaths,  to  do 
and  suffer  what  is  fitting  the  like.'  The  doctrines  of  immortality  and 
retribution  according  to  moral  desert,  everywhere  stand  out  with  great 
prominence  and  impressiveness  in  the  writings  of  this  author.  So  far, 
the  teachings  of  Plato  are  so  plain  that  very  little,  if  any,  difference  of 
opinion  obtains  among  historians  and  commentators  about  their  meaning. 

The  Psyohologt  op  Plato. 
It  is  almost  exclusively  of  the  intellect  that  Plato  gives  any  analysis  of 
the  mental  powers.  The  idea  of  a  mental  faculty  he  has  thus  defined. 
To  know  any  power,  he  tells  us,  and  very  correctly,  *  I  must  look  at  the 
power  itself,  and  see  what  it  is  and  what  it  does.  In  that  way  T  discern 
the  power  of  each  thing,  and  that  is  the  same  power  which  produces  the 
same  effect,  and  that  is  a  different  power  which  produces  a  different 
effect.'  The  question  which  now  arises  is  this,  What  kind  of  intellectual 
faculties  is  the  mind,  according  to  Plato,  possessed  of?  We  shall,  for 
the  most  part,  answer  this  question  in  the  language  of  Plato  himself. 
'  He  that  knows  anything,'  asks  Plato,  *  does  he  know  something  that  is 
or  is  not  %  Of  course  something  that  is  ;  that  which  is  not  cannot  be  an 
object  of  knowledge.  That  which  is  universally  may  be  known  univer- 
sally ;  that  which  is  not  anywhere  must  be  universally  unknown.  But 
if  there  be  things  which  are  both  to  be  and  not  to  be,  they  must  lie 
between  that  which  is  absolutely  and  that  which  ia  nowhere.  And 
knowledge  belongs  to  that  which  is;  ignorance  to  that  which  is  not;  to  that 
which  is  between  belongs  something  between  knowledge  and  ignorance, 
that  is,  opinion.  And  thus  knowledge  and  opinion  have  different  objects.' 
As  the  nature  of  a  faculty  is  determined  by  that  of  the  objects  perceived, 
we  have,  according  to  Plato,  two  faculties  of  original  perception — Reason, 
the  faculty  which  perceives  and  apprehends  realities  in  themselves,  and 
Opinion,  sensatioU|  or  sense-perception,  which  perceives  and  appreuends 


240  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

that  which  *  is  and  is  not.'  *  Knowledge  is  concerned  with  that  which 
really  is,  and  knows  it  as  it  is.'  *  Opinion,'  sense-perception,  '  deals 
neither  with  that  which  is  nor  that  which  is  not,'  but  with  that  '  which 
is  of  such  a  nature  that  it  is  and  is  not.' 

Intermediate  between  Eeason  and  Sensation  we  have,  according  to 
this  philosopher,  a  third  faculty,  the  Judgment,  the  faculty  of  concep- 
tions, the  faculty  through  which  we  obtain  a  knowledge  of  the  mathe- 
matics and  kindred  sciences,  *  Conceptions '  are  mental  apprehensions, 
not  of  visible  objects,  but  such  as  'geometrical  conceptions  of  figures.' 
Conceptions,  we  repeat,  as  the  term  is  employed  by  Plato,  represent  *  the 
definitions  and  postulates '  of  the  sciences,  our  conceptions  of  a  circle, 
triangle,  and  square,  for  example.  The  objects  of  these  conceptions  are 
*  rnie  kind  of  intelligible  things.'  These  sciences,  according  to  Plato, 
have  for  their  basis  'assumptions'  for  which  *no  reason  is  given,'  and 
reasoning  from  these  assumptions,  *  as  evident  to  all,'  we  '  have  the  pro- 
positions which  we  have  in  view.'  '  In  dealing  with  these  the  mind 
depends  upon  assumptions,  and  does  not  ascend  to  first  principles.'  The 
knowledge  obtained  by  means  of  these  sciences  has,  consequently,  as  he 
affirms,  a  less  degree  of  certainty  than  that  obtained  by  Reason.  Eeason, 
on  the  other  hand,  regards  the  '  assumptions  of  the  sciences  as '  (what 
they  are)  *  assumptions  only,  and  uses  them  as  occasions  and  starting 
points,  that  from  these  it  may  ascend  to  the  Absolute^  which  does  not 
depend  upon  assumption — the  (yrigin  of  scientific  truth.  The  reason  takes 
hold  of  this  jir&t  principle  of  truth,  and  availing  itself  of  all  the  connec- 
tions and  relations  of  this  principle,  it  proceeds  to  the  conclusion,  using 
no  sensible  image  in  doing  this,  but  contemplates  the  idea  alone,  and 
with  these  ideas  the  process  begins,  goes  on,  and  terminates.' 

'  I  apprehend,'  said  Glaucus,  '  but  not  very  clearly,  for  the  matter  is 
somewhat  abstruse.  You  wish  to  prove  that  the  knowledge  which  by 
reason,  in  an  intuitive  manner,  we  acquire  of  real  existence  and  intelligible 
things,  is  of  a  higher  degree  of  certainty  than  the  knowledge  which  belongs 
to  what  are  commonly  called  the  sciences;  such  sciences,  you  say,  have 
certain  assumptions  for  their  bases,  and  these  assumptions  are  by  the 
student  of  such  sciences  apprehended  not  by  sense,  but  by  a  mental 
operation,  by  conception. 

*  But  inasmuch  as  such  students  ascend  no  higher  than  assumptions, 
and  do  not  go  to  the  first  principles  of  truth,  they  do  not  seem  to  have 
true  knowledge,  intellectual  insight,  intuitive  reason  on  the  subjects  of 
their  reasonings,  though  the  subjects  are  intelligible  things.  And  you 
call  this  habit  and  practice  of  the  geometers  and  others  by  the  name  of 
Judgment,  not  reason,  or  insight,  or  intuition,  taking  judgment  to  be 
something  between  opinion  on  one  side  and  intuitive  reason  on  the 
othec' 


PLATO.  241 

'  You  have  explained  it  well,'  Plato  replies.  *  And  now  consider  these 
four  kinds  of  things  of  which  we  have  spoken  as  corresponding  to  four 
affections  (faculties)  of  the  mind.  Intuitive  Reason,  the  highest ;  Judg- 
ment, the  next ;  the  third,  Belief;  the  fourth,  Conjecture  or  Guesses; 
and  arrange  them  in  order  so  that  they  may  be  held  to  have  more  or  less 
of  certainty,  as  their  objects  have  more  or  less  of  truth.'  To  understand 
fully  and  clearly  the  psychology  of  Plato,  we  must  obtain  full  and 
definite  apprehension  of  the  nature  and  objects  of  each  of  these  faculties, 
as  he  understood  and  presented  them.     We  begin  with— 

Beason  and  Judgment 

Reason,  according  to  this  philosopher,  is  the  exclusive  faculty  of  real 
or  absolute  knowledge,  the  only  faculty  which  perceives  and  apprehends 
that  which  really  exists.  Even  the  real  truths  to  which  *  the  assump- 
tions,' as  he  calls  them,  of  the  pure  sciences  actually  pertain,  are  appre- 
hended not  by  the  Judgment  but  by  Reason.  Knowledge  by  Reason,  then, 
has  greater  certainty  than  that  obtained  through  these  sciences  by  means 
of  the  Judgment.  Knowledge  through  the  latter  is  indirect  and  mediate, 
through  assumptions  and  conceptions  of  the  same.  Knowledge  through 
Reason,  on  the  other  hand,  is  direct  and  immediate  or  intuitive. 

Yet  Reason  in  man,  in  his  present  state,  has  no  direct  and  immediate 
knowledge  of  realities,  or  of  absolute  truth.  In  a  former  state,  'the  soul, 
in  journeyings  with  Deity,'  had  an  insight  of  being  in  se,  or  of  existences 
as  they  are  in  themselves.  The  knowledge  which  it  now  has  of  such 
realities  *  is  a  recollection  of  those  things  which  our  soul  formerly  saw 
when  journeying  with  Deity.'  Souls  which  took  no  such  journeyings,  and 
never  thus  saw  existences  as  they  are,  or  who  have  perhaps  lost  all  such 
visions,  Plato  absolutely  affirms,  can  have  no' such  knowledge.  The 
apprehensions  of  aU  such  are  necessarily  limited  to  the  dark  sphere  of 
sense,  and  can  but  '  opine  that  which  is  of  such  a  nature  that  it  is  and  is 
not.' 

While  the  minor  faculties  are  common  to  all  men,  Reason — '  the  faculty 
divine,'  according  to  Plato,  has  place  as  a  faculty  in  but  a  very  small 
number  of  human  minds.  *  Of  true  opinion,'  he  says,  '  every  man  has 
a  share;  but  of  Reason  only  the  gods  and  some  small  portion  of  mankind.' 
Those  who  do  possess  this  divine  faculty  are,  as  our  philosopher  expressly 
affirms,  '  inspired  men,'  and  ought  to  rule  the  race.  Those  thinkers 
fundamentally  err  who  cite  Plato  as  authority  for  ranking  Reason  as  a 
faculty  of  the  human  mind  in  its  present  state.  The  psycnology  of  this 
philosopher  is  expressly,  not  the  psychology  of  the  human  mind,  but  of 
that  of  gods  and  philosophers.  The  mass  of  men  in  their  former  state 
never  '  journeyed  with  the  Deity '  at  all,  and  never  bad  any  visions  \jli 

16 


242  yi  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

existence  m  se,  or  have  so  absolutely  lost  those  remiuiscences  that  they 
cannot  by  any  possibility  be,  in  this  life,  recalled. 

Sensation  or  Sense-Perception. 

As  we  have  already  shown,  Plato  held  and  taught  the  eternal  existence 
of  matter  as  a  reality  distinct  from  God.  In  its  primal  state  this  substance 
was  '  formless  and  figureless,  but  recipient  of  all  forms.  And  as  con 
stituting  all  bodies  this  matter  was  divisible  and  of  the  nature  of  the 
manifold.'  This  originally  formless  and  figurativeless  'substance  God 
organized  into  a  material  universe  which  now  exists  in  that  form.'  This 
really  existing  universe,  however,  is  one  thing — that  which  we  seem  to 
cognize  through  Sensation,  sense-perception,  is  quite  another.  The  latter 
is  but  the  shadow  of  the  former.  It  is  the  world  of  perception,  and  not 
the  actually  existing  universe  of  matter,  that  Plato  affirms  to  be  '  of  the 
nature  of  that  which  is  and  is  not.'  The  opinions  which  we  obtain 
through  Sensation,  according  to  the  Platonic  hypothesis,  Plato  is  at  great 
pains  to  elucidate  and  explain  in  Book  VIL  chapters  i.  and  ii.  of  the 
Republic.  We  give  what  is  essential  to  an  apprehension  of  his  meaning 
in  his  own  words. 

*  "  Behold  men,  as  it  were,  in  an  underground  cave-like  dwelling,  having 
its  entrance  open  towards  the  light  and  extending  through  the  whole 
cave,  and  within  it  persons,  who  from  childhood  upwards  have  had 
chains  on  their  legs  and  their  necks,  so  as,  while  abiding  there,  to  have 
the  power  of  looking  forward  only,  but  not  to  turn  round  their  heads  by 
reason  of  their  chains,  their  light  coming  from  a  fire  that  burns  above 
and  far  off  and  behind  them  ;  and  between  the  fire  and  those  in  chains  is 
a  road  above,  along  which  one  may  see  a  little  wall  was  built  along." — '*  I 
see,"  said  he. — "Behold,  then,  by  the  side  of  this  little  wall,  men  carrying 
all  sorts  of  machines  rising  above  the  wall,  and  statues  of  men  and  other 
animals  wrought  in  stone,  and  other  materials,  some  of  the  bearers  probably 
speaking,  and  others  proceeding  in  silence." — "You  are  proposing,"  said 
he,  "  a  most  absurd  comparison,  and  absurd  captives  also." — "  Such  as 
resemble  ourselves,"  said  I;  "for  think  you  that  such  as  these  would 
have  seen  anything  of  themselves  or  one  another  except  the  shadows 
which  fall  from  the  fire  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  cave  ?" — "  How  can 
they,"  said  he,  "  if  they  be  through  life  compelled  to  keep  their  heads 
unmoved  ]" — "  But  what  respecting  the  things  carried  by  them — is  not 
this  the  same  ?" — "  Of  course." — "  If  they  had  been  able  to  talk  with  each 
other,  do  you  not  suppose  they  would  think  it  right  to  give  names  to 
what  they  saw  before  them  1" — "  Of  course  they  would." — "  But  if  the 
prison  had  an  echo  on  its  opposite  side,  when  any  person  present  were  to 
speak,  think  you  they  would  imagine  anything  else  addressed  to"  (that  is 
addressing)  "  them,  except  th«  shadow  before  them  ]" — "  'So,  by , 


PLATO.  243 

not  I,"  said  he. — "At  all  events,  then,"  said  I,  "such  persons  would 
deem  truth  to  be  notliing  but  the  shadows  of  exhibitions." — "  Of  course 
they  would." ' 

Such,  Plato  held  and  taught,  are  our  relations  tj  the  material  universe 
which  really  exists.  Of  it,  or  any  realities  in  it,  we  have  no  real  know- 
ledge whatever.  What  we  do  perceive  is  but  a  shadow — a  dimly  reflected 
image  of  what  really  erasts.  Yet  all  but  philosophers  deem  these  shadows, 
which  they  do  see  the  only  world  which  does  exist.  Ourselves  and  the 
men  which  we  think  we  see  aud  converse  with,  are  mere  shadows — 
images  of  men,  and  not  real  men.  So  in  all  other  cases.  The  only 
approach,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  that  we  can  make,  either  by  Eeason 
or  otherwise,  to  a  knowledge  of  real  material  forms  as  they  are  in  them- 
selves, is  to  abstract  from  classes  of  individuals,  whom  we  seem  to  per- 
ceive, the  elements  strictly  common  to  all,  and  combine  these  common 
elements  into  a  general  conception.  While  individual  conceptions  most 
remotely,  these  general  notions  more  nearly,  resemble  actually  existing 
realities.  The  knowledge,  however,  which  we  obtain  of  these  realities 
through  these  general  notions,  the  only  form  of  such  knowledge  now 
possible  to  us,  is  nothing  but  *  a  bastard  form  of  knowledge.'  Three 
classes  of  realities  exist — ideas,  of  which  we  are  to  speak  in  another  con- 
nection, material  forms,  and  the  shadows  which  are  produced  by  the  two 
former.  'Thus  the  universe  is  constituted  of  Idea,  Matter,  and  Sensible 
Objects,  the  offspring  of  the  other  two.'  *  And  these  things,  being  three, 
are  known  in  three  ways — the  idea,  by  Intellect,  as  science ;  matter,  by  a 
bastard  kind  of  reasoning,  for  we  cannot  yet  attain  to  discern  it  directly, 
but  by  analogy :  and  the  product  of  these '  [things  which  are  and  are 
not]  *  by  Sensation  and  opinion.' 

Acconling  to  Plato  the  entire  race,  a  few  philosophers  excepted,  are  in 
a  very  pitiable  condition  relatively  to  all  forms  of  real  knowledge.  Of 
ideas,  those  '  ungenerated  and  unchanged  and  permanent '  verities,  they 
nan  know  nothing  whatever,  excepting  through  *  the  reminiscences '  or 
b,  priori  insight  of  philosophers,  whose  revelations  are  as  contradictory  as 
those  of  '  Chaos  and  Old  Night.'  What  they  can  glean  through  the 
Judgment  has  no  other  basis  but  mere  assumptions ;  while,  in  their  con- 
finement within  the  low  cell  of  Sensation,  they  are  compelled  to  regard, 
as  alone  real  existences  mere  shadows  '  which  are  of  the  nature  of  that 
which  is  and  is  not.' 

General  Remarks  upon  this  Pstohologt. 
In  regard  to  the  psychology  of  this  philosopher,  we  would  remark  in 
general,  that  there  never  was  a  system  proposed  more  fundamentally  de- 
fective, on  the  one  hand,  or  erroneous,  on  the  other.     While  essential 
tuculties  are  omitted,  not  one  that  is  given  is  located  in  its  proper  sphere, 

IG— 2 


244  ^  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHlLOSOPflY. 

or  has  assigned  to  it  its  proper  functions.  There  are  no  facts  of  mind 
that  can  be  explained  by  this  psychology  just  as  they  are  given  in  the 
universal  consciousness.  These  statements  we  will  now  proceed  to  •verify. 
We  remark,  then  : 

1.  The  idea  that  there  is,  or  can  be,  a  something  intermediate  between 
real  existence  and  non-existence,  a  something  *  which  is  of  the  nature  of 
that  which  is  and  is  not*  is  one  of  the  most  palpable  absurdities  that 
ever  approached  human  thought.  As  rendered  demonstrable  before 
Plato  began  to  write  by  Parmenides,  the  Idealist,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
Anaxagoras,  the  Eealist,  on  the  other,  we  are  necessitated  by  an  immut- 
able law  of  thought  to  regard  every  object  as  a  real  existence,  or  as  not 
existing  at  all.  To  affirm,  that  there  may  be  a  something  '  which  is 
of  the  nature  of  that  which  is  and  is  not,'  a  something  which  is  always 
becoming  and  never  becomes,  is,  undeniably,  perfectly  identical  with  the 
absurdity  that  the  same  thing  may  at  the  same  moment  exist  and  not 
exist.  JSTo  philosopher  can  show  the  difference  between  this  dogma  of 
Plato  and  the  absurdity  before  us.  Plato's  theory  of  sense-perception, 
therefore,  cannot  be  true. 

2.  Facts  and  objects  of  sense-perception  are  not  consciously  perceived, 
as  Plato  affirms  them  to  be.  Every  object  perceived,  on  the  other  hand, 
stands  before  the  mind  as  a  real  and  palpable  existence,  and  in  no  sense 
or  form  as  a  something  which  is  always  becoming  but  never  becomes. 
Plato  thought,  or  attempted  to  think,  of  these  objects  in  that  light ;  but 
they  were  never  thus  present  to  him,  nor  are  they  thus  present  to  any- 
body else,  as  objects  of  perception.  !Nor,  as  perceived,  are  these  objects 
in  appearance  the  fleeting,  aud  ever-changing  shadows  which  he  affirms 
them  to  be.  The  substances  which  constitute  all  visible  material  forms 
are  universally  thought  as  permanent  entities.  These  entities  may  from 
time  to  tiffe  enter  into  new  combinations,  but  they  themselves  never 
change.  Nor  are  the  forms  of  material  combination  the  ever-changing 
shadows  which  Plato  imagines.  In  every  visible  combination  the  essen 
tial  qualities  of  matter,  extension,  and  form,  are  always  present.  Then, 
as  Aristotle  has  truly  said,  there  are  objects,  such  as  the  stars  of  heaven, 
whose  forms  never  change.  The  globe  on  which  we  dwell  is,  to  the 
universal  mind,  and  to  philosophers  as  well  as  others,  an  enduring  entity. 
On  it  are  *  the  everlasting  mountains,'  and  *  the  perpetual  hills,'  and  the 
ocean,  whose  enduring  permanence  renders  it  the  proper  and  impressive 
symbol  of  eternity  Everything  about  us,  as  perceived,  is  not  a  becoming 
which  never  becomes,  but  a  definite  existence.  The  honoured  Presidents 
of  Yale,  Harvard,  and  our  State  University,  for  example,  are  philosophers 
possessed  of  Sensation  and  Reason.  Permit  us  to  ask  them,  in  serious 
earnestness,  whether  they  are  to  themselves,  and  their  associate  Professors 
are  to  them,  uot  real  men,  but  what  Plato  affirms  all  men  to  be,  '  the 


PLATO.  245 

shadows  that  fall  from  the  fire  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  cave  1  Plato 
affirms  that  *a  proof  that  lacks  anything,  however  little,  of  completeness, 
and  is  a  proof  in  some  measure  merely^  is  not  satisfactory.  Defect  fa  not 
the  measure  of  anything.'  Plato's  exposition  of  sensation,  or  sense-per- 
ception, is  not  only  defective,  and  therefore  not  the  measure  of  the 
conscious  reality,  but,  what  is  still  worse,  is  false  in  fact. 

3.  Equally  defective  and  erroneous  is  Plato's  exposition  of  the  sphere 
and  the  validity  of  the  action  of  the  faculty  of  Judgment.  Mathe- 
matics and  other  kindred  sciences  instead  of  being  based,  as  he  affirms 
them  to  be,  on  mere  assumptions,  are,  in  fact  and  form,  based  upon  universal, 
necessary,  and  intuitive  truths,  or  principles.  Every  one  of  their  axioms 
and  postulates  have  both  necessary  and  intuitive  certainty.  Are  the 
axioms,  *  Things  equal  to  the  same  thiugs  are  equal  to  one  another,'  and 
'  A  straight  line  cannot  enclose  a  space,'  and,  *  It  is  impossible  for  the  same 
thing,  at  the  same  time,  to  exist  and  not  to  exist,' mere  assumptions  1  Is 
it  not  perfectly  evident  that  Plato  never  thought  of  the  distiuction  be- 
tween assumptions  and  real  principles  of  science  1  Nor  can  we  be  more 
certain  of  any  truths  than  we  are,  and  must  be,  of  the  validity  of  the 
principles  and  deductions  of  all  the  real  sciences.  No  greater  mistake 
can  be  made  in  science  than  appears  in  the  doctrine,  'that  the  knowledge 
which,  by  Eeason,  in  an  intuitive  manner,  we  may  acquire  of  real  exist- 
ence and  intelligible  things,  is  of  a  higher  degree  of  certainty  than  the 
knowledge  which  belongs  to  what  are  commonly  called  the  sciences.' 
Will  some  philosopher  designate  some  truth  of  which  we  are,  or  can  be, 
more  certain,  than  we  are  of  the  truth  of  the  axioms  above  designated,  or 
of  the  demonstrated  truth,  that  the  square  of  the  hypothenuse  of  a  right- 
angled  triangle  is  equal  to  the  sum  of  the  squares  of  its  two  sides  1  Can 
there  be  a  higher  degree  of  certainty  than  necessary  certainty]  When 
Plato,  therefore,  placed  the  pure  sciences,  and  that  on  the  score  of  certainty, 
as  *  something  between  opinion,  on  the  one  side,  and  intuitive  reason  on 
the  other,'  he  fell  into  a  fundamental  error  in  science. 

4.  One  of  the  greatest  and  most  dangerous  of  all  the  errors  of  Plato,  is 
the  doctrine  that  Reason  in  philosophers  and  finite  gods,  or  in  anybody 
else,  is  a  faculty  which  has,  not  through  facts  consciously  perceived,  but 
by  direct,  intuitive,  and  independent  insight,  a  perception  of  '  real  exist- 
ence and  intelligible  things.'  Plato's  method  of  philosophizing,  we  have 
already  fully  explained.  Eacts  of  perception  are,  by  him,  not  only  ignored, 
but  repudiated  as  clogs  in  the  matter  of  intuitive  insight  through  Ri^ason. 
All  the  works  of  Plato  are  constructed  in  perfect  accordance  with  this 
exclusive  method.  If  our  previous  discussions  have  established  anything, 
they  have  demonstrated  the  fact  that  the  mind  has  no  such  faculty  as 
that  which  this  thinker  professedly  used  when  philosophizing.  Whether 
any  substances  or  causes,  and.  what  substances  and  causes,  do  exist  in 


246  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

time  and  space,  we  can  know  but  through  facts  and  qualities  perceived 
to  be  real  A  correct  analysis  of  all  our  conceptions  and  judgments,  also, 
renders  it  demonstrably  evident  that  all  our  ideas  of  substances  and  causes 
were  thus  derived.  Our  conception  of  body,  for  example,  is  constituted 
exclusively  of  qualities  perceived  and  substance  implied  by  what  is 
perceived.  All  our  conceptions  of  the  self  and  not-self,  are  of  this  exclu- 
sive character.  Every  cause  which  we  regard  as  existing  and  acting  in 
time  and  space  is  given  and  known,  and  that  exclusively  as  implied  by 
events  and  facts  perceived  to  have  occurred.  There  is  not  a  necessary 
idea  in  the  mind  which  is  not  given  in  the  universal  ci)nsciousness  as 
implied  by  facts  and  objects  of  perception,  and  known  exclusively  as 
thus  implied.  The  ideas  of  space,  tiniP,  substance,  cause,  duty,  and  God, 
for  example,  are  given  as  implied  b/  budy,  succession,  phenomena,  eveuts, 
and  conscious  facts,  which  we  perceive  to  exist.  When  we  analyze  our 
judgments  which  possess  necessary  and  universal  intuitive  certainty,  we 
find  this  relation  to  exist  between  the  subject  and  predicate,  that  the 
former,  as  the  contingent,  or  perceived,  implies  the  latter  as  the  necessary, 
element  or  object.  Of  this  cbariicter  are  all  such  judgments  as,  Body 
implies  space;  Succession,  time;  Phenomena,  substance ;  and  Events,  a 
cause.  Such  facts  absolutely  evince  tliat  the  object  or  implied  idea,  is 
apprehended  through  that  of  the  couiiugeut  conception.  Space,  time, 
substance,  and  cause,  and  all  other  objects  of  universal  and"  necessary 
ideas,  are  not  perceived  directly  and  immediately,  but  through  body,  suc- 
cession, phenomena,  and  events,  and  other  objects  of  perception,  and  the 
former  class  of  realities  are  always  apprehended  as  implied  by  that  of  the 
latter,  and  as  known  through  the  same. 

In  no  other  sense  tlian  as  implied  by  phenomena  and  events,  are  the 
ideas  of  substance  and  cause,  in  any  form  in  which  they  appear,  necessary 
ideas  at  all.  Suppose  that  any  substance  or  cause  was  directly  perceived 
by  Reason,  or  any  other  faculty  ;  the  idea  of  such  object  would,  in  that  casH, 
be  a  contingent,  and  not  a  necessary  one.  Why  do  we  say  that  our  con- 
ception of  body  is  a  contingent  idea  %  Because  we  can  conceive  of  its 
object  as  existing  or  not  existing.  If  we  should  perceive,  directly  and 
immediately,  any  substance  or  cause  to  exist,  we  could  conceive  sucli 
object  also  to  exist  or  not  to  exist,  and  we  should  derive  from  it  a  con- 
tingent and  not  a  necessary  idea.  The  conception,  als.,  would  be  one  of 
an  individual  object,  an  object  which  would  have  no  element  of  univer- 
sality about  it.  When  we  perceive  ^  existence  in,  56,'  we  always  do,  and 
from  the  necessity  of  the  case  must  perceive,  not  forms  of  universal,  but 
individual  being.  It  is  only  when  we  apprehend  substance  and  cause 
through  phenomena  and  events,  and  as  implied  by  the  same,  that  the 
element  of  universality  does,  or  can,  attach  to  our  ideas  of  the  former. 
To  affirm  that  Keason,  or  any  other  faculty,  directly  and  immediately 


FLA  TO.  247 

perceives  existence  in  se,  or  universal  and  necessary  truths,  is  an  uude- 
niable  absurdity.  The  object  of  perception,  whether  through  Reason  or 
any  other  faculty,  must,  we  repeat,  be  an  individual  object,  and  can  be 
nothing  else.  Universal  relations  do  exist,  but  a  universal  thing,  or 
object,  or  substance,  cannot  exist.  The  cause  of  all  conditioned  forms  uf 
being,  and  events,  may  be  and  is,  one  and  the  same.  The  cause  itself, 
however,  as  an  existence,  must  in  itself  be  an  individual  existence.  It  is 
only  when  apprehended  as  sustaining  universal  and  necessary  relations, 
that  the  characteristics  of  universality  and  necessity  do,  or  can,  attach  to 
it.  Suppose  it  should  be  said,  that  by  Eeason,  we  perceive  directly  ami 
immediately  universal  relations.  But  relations  can  be  perceived  only 
through  the  objects  related. 

It  is  one  of  the  greatest  absurdities  conceivable,  also,  that  perception 
through  one  faculty  has  higher  certainty  than  through  another,  when 
perception,  in  both  cases,  is  consciously  direct  and  immediate.  The  miud, 
with  all  its  faculties,  is  confined  within  the  body.  We  are  conscious  of  a 
direct  and  immediate  knowledge,  through  external  and  internal  percep- 
tions, of  the  qualities  of  matter  and  spirit.  Suppose,  now,  that  we  do 
have,  through  lieason,  a  conscious  vision  of  'existence  in  se.'  On  what 
authority,  we  ask,  can  it  be  affirmed  that  vision,  in  this  last  form,  is,  and 
is  not  in  either  of  the  others,  valid  for  the  reality  and  character  of  its 
objects  V  If  perception  consciou  y  direct  and  immediate  is,  in  one  form, 
valid  for  the  reality  and  character  of  its  objects,  and  not  in  another,  then 
things  equal  to  the  same  things  are  not.  equal  to  one  another.  From 
whatever  stand-point  we  consider  the  subject,  we  must  conclude  that  the 
faculty  of  Reason  is  totally  mislocated  by  Plato,  and  that  the  faculty, 
as  he  has  defined  it,  has  no  being  at  all.  The  dogma  that  mind,  whilo 
in  the  body,  cannot  know  itself  or  objects  immediately  around  it,  Ijud 
can  look  off  into  infinite  space  and  eternal  duration,  and  discern  abso 
lutely  what  realities  and  events  exist  and  are  passing  there,  is  an 
absurdity  which  ought  never  to  have  had  place  in  philosophic  thought, 
and  never  especially  in  that  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

5.  But  mislocation  and  erroneous  exposition  of  the  intellectual  faculties 
are  not  the  only  or  the  greatest  errors  in  Plato's  psychology.  Omission 
of  fundamental  faculties  is  another  error  quite  as  obvious  and  important 
as  any  which  we  have  designated.  In  this  psychology  the  faculties  of 
Self-consciousness  and  Understanding  have  no  place.  Yet  without  these, 
facts  of  mind  as  they  actually  exist,  together  with  the  processes  of  true 
science,  cannot  be  correctly  explained  nor  elucidated. 

6.  While  existing  mental  phenomena  and  the  entire  process  of  real 
science  are  wholly  inexplicable  through  the  psychology  of  Plato,  all  are 
perfectly  and  readily  explicable  through  that  which  we  have  given.  The 
elements  of  universal  knowledge,  in  all  its  forms  and  developments,  can  be 


248  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

demonstrated  to  have  been  furnished  by  the  three  primary  faculties  which 
we  have  designated,  to  wit :  Sense,  Consciousness,  and  Reason,  and 
through  these  faculties  acting  in  the  identical  spheres  and  relations  to 
which  we  have  assigned  them.  The  most  critical  analysis  of  all  our  con- 
ceptions, ideas,  judgments,  memories,  and  creations  of  the  Imagination, 
will  demonstrably  evince,  that  not  a  single  element  can  be  discovered  in 
any  one  of  these,  an  element  not  originally  furnished  by  one  of  the 
primary  faculties  which  we  have  designated.  All  the  elements  of  thought, 
in  all  its  forms,  were  furnished  by  perception,  external  or  internal,  or  by 
Reason  as  implied  by  what  is  perceived. 

Through  the  elements  thus  furnished  we  can  account  for  the  entire 
action  of  the  Understanding  in  combining  these  elements  into  notions  or 
conceptions,  just  as  they  exist  in  the  mind.  In  an  analysis  of  such  con- 
ceptions, the  individual  elements  furnished  by  each  faculty  can  be 
specifically  designated,  and  no  elements  can  be  found  which  cannot  be 
thus  referred  and  accounted  for. 

Then,  through  the  proper  action  of  the  Judgment,  we  can  explain  the 
process  by  which,  first  of  all,  these  conceptions  are  analyzed  and  resolved 
into  their  original  elements,  and  how  from  these,  individual,  specifical, 
generical,  and  abstract  conceptions,  together  with  ideas  of  Reason  in  their 
universal  forms,  are  obtained.  Having  thus  explained  and  elucidated  the 
origin  and  genesis  of  the  phenomena  designated,  a  ready  explanation  can 
be  furnished  of  the  entire  process  of  classification  and  generalizntion. 

An  explanation,  equally  and  obviously  scientific,  can  then  be  given  of 
the  origin  and  genesis  of  all  judgments,  contingent  and  necessary,  intui- 
tive and  deductive,  together  with  the  entire  process  of  valid  induction 
and  deduction.  The  facts,  principles,  laws,  and  nature  of  all  the  sciences, 
pure  and  mixed,  can  be  demonstrated  to  be  perfectly  explicable  through 
the  faculties  presented  by  this  psychology.  Not  a  single  element  of 
thought,  not  a  conception,  idea,  principle,  or  deduction,  can  be  found  in 
any  procedure  of  any  of  the  valid  sciences,  which  will  not  be  found  to  be 
perfectly  explicable  through  these  facultiea 

Through  this  psychology  we  are  also  furnished  with  explanations 
absolute  of  the  entire  procedure  of  false  science.  We  can  readily  explain 
the  points  from  which  error  always  takes  its  departure  from  the  track  of 
truth,  the  lines  on  which  it  must  move,  and  the  forms  which  it  does,  and 
must,  assume.  Absolute  criteria  can  be  furnished  by  which  original 
intuitions,  valid  conceptions,  ideas,  facts,  principles,  and  deductions,  may 
be  distinguished  and  separated  from  all  assumptions,  opinions,  beliefs  and 
conjectures,  which  may  or  may  not  be  true,  and  from  all  inductions  and 
deductions  which  have  place  in  systems  of  false  science.  In  short,  true 
and  false  science,  in  all  their  characteristics  and  procedures,  can  be  demon- 
strated to  be  perfectly  explicable  through  the  faculties  furnished  by  this 


FLA  TO.  249 

psychology.  All  the  above  statements  we  pledge  ourselves  to  verify  most 
fully  at  the  close  of  this  treatise.  Our  present  object  is  to  indicate  with 
sufficient  distinctness  the  reasons  for  which  we  reject  wholly  the  psycho- 
logy of  Plato  and  others  and  adopt  the  one  presented. 

Plato's  Doctrine  op  Ideas. 

All  who  have  at  all  studied  Plato  are  agreed  in  the  fact  that  all  his 
teachings  revolve  about  his  doctrine  of  Ideas.  When  we  ask  the  question, 
what  this  doctrine  really  is,  here  the  highest  authorities  are  divided,  and 
irreconcilably  so.  These  diversities,  however,  take  on  two,  and  only  tsvo, 
general  forms.  Ideas,  as  expounded  by  Plato,  are,  according  to  one  school, 
'  the  eternal  thoughts  of  the  Divine  Intellect,'  '  the  types,  models,  patterns, 
ideals  according  to  which  the  universe  was  fashioned,'  and  *  we  attain 
truth  when  our  thoughts  conform  with  His '  (God's),  '  when  our  general 
notions  are  in  conformity  with  the  Ideas.* 

According  to  another  school,  Platonic  Ideas  are  not  *  eternal  thoughts 
of  the  Divine  Intellect,'  but  objects  which  have  'real  existence,  colour- 
less, figureless,  and  intangible  Existence,  which  is  visible  only  to  mind.' 
*  Socrates,'  says  Aristotle,  '  gave  neither  to  general  terms  nor  definitions, 
that  is,  to  the  objects  represented  by  such  terms  and  definitions,  any 
distinct  existence.  Those  who  succeeded  him  gave  to  those  general 
terms  a  separate  existence,  and  called  them  Ideas.'  In  our  discussion  of 
the  subject  we  will  first  consider  what  Plato  has  himself  said  upon  it, 
then  endeavour  to  show  which  of  the  above  constructions  is  correct ;  and, 
lastly,  present  the  consequences  which  necessarily  follow  from  each  con- 
struction. 

In  what  Language  and  Form  Flato  has  stated  his  own  Doctrine. 
The  idea  is  a  very  singular  one,  that  such  a  thinker  as  Plato  should 
make  a  doctrine  perfectly  fundamental  in  all  his  teachings,  should  present 
it  in  every  conceivable  diversity  of  form,  and  should  take,  to  appear- 
ance, all  possible  pains  to  render  his  meaning  intelligible,  and  yet  should 
leave  his  real  views  unascertainable.  In  the  Fhcedrus  we  have  this 
description  of  Ideas :  '  The  region  above  heaven  no  poet  has  ever  sung  of, 
nor  ever  will  sing  of  as  it  deserves.  It  is,  however,  as  follows,  for  surely 
I  may  venture  to  speak  the  truth,  especially  as  my  subject  is  truth  :  for 
essence,  that  which  really  exists,  colourless,  formless,  and  intangible,  is 
visible  only  to  Intelligence  which  guides  the  soul,  and  around  it  the 
family  of  true  science  have  this  for  their  abode.'  During  its  circuit 
above  heaven,  the  soul  '  beholds  justice  herself,  it  beholds  temperance,  it 
beholds  science,  in  that  which  really  is.  And  in  like  manner,  having 
beheld  all  other  things  which  really  are,  and  having  feasted  on  them,  it 
again  enters  into  the  interior  of  heaven,  and  retiuos  home.'     *  There  are 


250  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

many  beautiful  things,  many  good  things.'  '  But  essential  beauty,  auil 
essential  goodness,  and  the  like,  which  appear  in  these  things,  we  regard 
as  each  a  single  Idea' [of  which  these  things  partake];  'and  referring 
things  to  this  Idea,  we  call  them  by  their  qualities.  And  we  hold  that 
the  things  can  be  seen,  but  not  conceived ;  the  Ideas  are  conceived,  but 
nut  seen.'  *  There  are  two  causes  of  all  things  :  Mind,  the  cause  of  things 
which  are  made  according  to  reason  ;  Necessity,  the  cause  of  things  which 
happen  by  force  according  to  the  power  of  bodies.  And  of  the  former 
the  cause  is  of  the  nature  of  good,  and  is  called  God,  and  is  the  principle 
of  what  is  Best,  but  the  consequences  and  co-operating  causes  are  referred 
to  necessity.  And  thus  the  Universe  is  constituted  of  Ideas  (things  made 
according  to  reason),  Matter,  and  Sensible  Objects,  the  offspring  of  the 
two.'  '  The  former,  the  Idea,  is  ungenerated  and  unchanged,  permanent, 
of  the  nature  of  the  Identical ;  intelligible,  and  the  paradigm  of  things 
created,  which  are  in  constant  change.  But  matter  is  the  impressible 
material,  the  mother  and  nurse,  and  is  the  source  of  generation  of  the 
third  kind  of  being.  For  receiving  the  likeness  (of  the  Idea)  into  itself, 
and  as  it  were  being  moulded  on  them,  it  produces  all  created  things. 
And  this  matter  was  eternal,  but  not  unchangeable ;  and  itself  formless 
and  ligureless,  but  the  recipient  of  all  form.  And  as  constituting  bodies, 
this  matter  was  divisible,  and  of  the  nature  of  the  manifold.'  *  And 
things,  being  three,  are  known  in  three  ways ;  the  Idea,  by  Eeason,  as 
science ;  Matter,  by  a  bastard  reasoning,  for  we  cannot  yet  attain  to 
discern  it  directly,  but  by  analogy  ;  and  the  products  of  these  by  Sensa- 
tion and  opinion.'  '  If  those  ideas  really  exist '  ('  Eightness,  Goodness, 
and  the  rest '),  *  our  souls  must  have  existed  before  we  were  born.'  '  The 
Ideas  which  we  spoke  of  a  little  while  ago ;  the  realities  to  which  we 
refer  in  our  discussions,  absolute  Equality,  absolute  Goodness,  absolute 
Beauty,  and  the  like,  these  are  always  the  same,  and  do  not  suli'er  the 
smallest  alteration,'  The  next  passage  to  which  we  refer  is  of  great  im- 
portance in  its  bearing  upon  the  question  which  we  are  now  to  argue. 
In  a  passage  cited  above  Plato  affirms  '  Ideas  to  be  ungenerated,  and,  con- 
sequently, eternally  existing  verities.'  In  the  passage  now  to  be  cited 
these  same  Ideas  are  affirmed  to  be  derived,  that  is,  created  entities. 
*  We  may  say,  therefore,  as  to  the  things  cognizable  by  the  Eeason  * 
(Ideas),  '  that  they  became  cognizable  not  only  from  the  good  by  which 
they  are  known,  but  likewise  that  their  being  and  essence  are  thenca 
derived,  while  the  Good  itself  is  not  essence,  but  beyond  essence,  and 
superior  to  both  in  dignity  and  power.*  In  the  Eepublic,  Plato  refers 
expressly  to  the  '  creation  of  Ideas,*  and  in  the  Tiuucus  as  expressly  to 
the  *  eternity  and  uncreated  nature  of  Ideas.'  In  the  tenth  book  of  the 
Eepublic  we  have  a  specific  statement  of  the  distinction  between  Ideas 
and  visible  objects,  and  of  God's  relation  to  the  former  especially.     In 


FLA  TO.  25« 

respect  to  classes  of  objects  which  are  '  embraced  under  one  general  Idea, 
Plato  thus  illustrates  his  own  conception  of  the  relation  between  the 
former  and  the  latter.  *  Take  anything  you  like.  For  instance,  there  is 
a  multiplicity  of  beds  and  tables,'  and  the  *  two  kinds  are  comprised,  one 
under  the  Idea  of  a  bed,  and  the  other  under  the  Idea  of  a  table.'  'The 
carpenter,'  he  says,  'makes  one  of  these,  and  the  artist  paints  another.' 
2feituer,  however,  'makes  the  Idea  itself  Each,  in  what  he  does,  looks 
to  the  Idea  and  imitates  that.  Both  are  alike  imitators,  and  produce 
nothing  real.  The  painter  '  makes  an  apparent  table  ;  not  a  real  table.' 
So  of  the  carpenter.  *  He  does  not  make  the  thing  that  is,  but  only 
something  that  is  like  it.  If  any  one  says  that  the  thing  produced  by 
any  handy-craftsman  has  a  real  existence,  he  will  be  in  error.'  *  There 
are  three  kinds  of  tables ;  the  first,  the  essential,  the  ideal  one,  which 
God  himself  makes ;  and  then  the  one  which  the  carpenter  makes ;  and 
then  the  one  which  the  painter  makes.'  'The  one  which  God  makes 
is  single,  unique ;  there  are  not,  and  will  not  be,  more  than  one.  There 
cannot  be  two  or  more,'  and  '  this  would  be  the  real  Idea  of  table.  And 
thus  God  is  the  real  author  of  the  real  table.'  All  universals,  as  genera, 
are,  with  Plato,  real  existences,  and  are  by  him  represented  by  the  term 
Ideas.  These  are  real  '  existences  per  se.'  Individuals  are  existences  so  far 
only  as  they  participate  of  Ideas.  That  such  is  the  language  of  Plato 
none  will  deny.  Equally  universal  is  the  admission  of  all  thinkers  who 
study  Plato,  that  Ideas,  according  to  him,  are  the  archetypes  after  which 
all  generated  objects  are  formed.  But  what  is  the  nature  of  these  Ideas  ? 
Are  they  the  eternal  thoughts  of  the  Divine  Intellect,  'or  are  tliey  real 
existences  distinct  from  God,  in  the  same  sense  that  '  things  that  are 
made '  are  distinct  ]  On  this  subject  the  following  considerations  demand 
special  attention. 

Plato's  Real  Doctrine  of  Ideas. 

1.  In  favour  of  the  validity  of  the  latter  construction,  we  have  the 
positive  testimony  of  Aristotle,  together  with  the  fact  of  the  origination 
by  him  of  a  school  in  Philosophy  openly  opposed  to  Plato  relatively  to 
his  affirmed  teaching  on  this  point  We  here  adduce  the  passage  from 
Aristotle,  cited  above  :  '  Socrates  gave  neither  to  general  terms  nor  to  de- 
finitions distinct  existence.'  '  Those  who  followed  him  gave  to  these 
generiW  terms  a  separate  existence,  and  called  them  Ideas.'  ii'one  doubt 
that  here  a  special  reference  is  had  to  Plato.  Again  says  Aristotle  : 
'  Intelligible  essences  he  (Plato)  called  Ideas,  adding  that  sensible  objects 
were  different  from  Ideas,  and  received  from  them  their  names ;  for  it  is 
in  consequence  of  ih.Q\v  participation  in  Ideas,  that  all  objects  of  the  same 
genus  receive  the  name  of  Ideas.'  The  testimony  of  Aristotle,  as  we 
perceive,  is  perfectly  positive  on  this  subject.    Hot  does  anyone  doubt 


252  ^   CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPIiy. 

that  Aristotle  separated  from  his  former  instructor,  and  set  up  a  school  in 
opposition  to  him,  on  the  ground  that  the  latter  did  teach  that  the  objects 
represented  by  general  terms  are  real  and  separate  existences.  That 
Aristotle  misunderstood  Plato,  none  will  affirm.  A  misunderstanding 
between  them  in  the  relations  which  they  sustained  to  each  other,  was 
undeniably  impossible.  If  the  former  misrepresented  the  latter,  he  did 
it  deliberately,  and  founded  his  school  upon  a  conscious  falsehood,  and 
palpable  and  slanderous  misrepresentation.  Can  anyone  assign,  real 
character  out  of  the  question,  any  rational  motive  fur  such  a  misrepre- 
sentation, and  for  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  such  a  man  as  Aristotle,  to 
found  a  school  upon  it,  and  to  do  this  in  Athens,  in  the  very  vicinity  of 
the  Academy  ?  Above  all,  can  anyone  account  for  Aristotle's  success  in 
founding  such  a  school  under  such  circumstances  ?  He  must  have  been 
fully  aware  that  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  his  representations  would  be 
*  known  and  read  of  all  men,'  The  case  was  too  palpable  to  admit  of  any 
doubt  on  the  subject.  !Nor  could  disciples  have  been  drawn  off  from 
Plato  and  gathered  around  him,  were  there  no  real  and  fundamental  dif- 
ference between  the  two,  in  regard  to  the  doctrine  of  Ideas.  Both  believed 
in  God,  and  taught  that  He  created  the  universe  in  conformity  to  ideas 
pre-existing  in  the  divine  mind.  If  this  was  really  and  truly,  and  of 
course  avowedly,  Plato's  doctrine  of  Ideas,  two  opposite  schools  could 
never  have  been  formed  under  these  philosophers,  schools  professedly 
divided  in  respect  to  a  doctrine  about  which  all  avowedly  agreed. 

2.  Neither  Plato,  nor  any  of  his  followers,  nor  any  other  ancient  writer, 
charges  Aristotle  with  the  misrepresentation  under  consideration.  Plato 
and  his  school  accepted  the  issue  presented  by  Aristotle  and  his  school, 
in  respect  to  the  doctrine  before  us,  and  argued  it  accordingly.  The 
silence  of  all  ancient  authorities,  as  far  as  any  charge  of  misrepresentation 
on  the  part  of  Aristotle  is  concerned,  presents  the  strongest  conceivable 
proof  that  no  ground  for  such  a  charge  did  exist  .  Modern  authorities, 
■who  adduce  this  charge,  support  it  by  no  citations  from  the  ancients. 

3.  The  origin  and  continuance  for  so  many  centuries  of  two  distinct 
and  opposite  sects  in  Philosophy — the  one  having  its  basis  in  the  teachings 
of  Plato,  and  the  other  in  those  of  Aristotle,  sects  the  exclusive  issue 
between  whom  pertained  to  the  doctrine  under  consideration — the  orjp^in 
and  continuance  of  these  sects,  we  say,  are  explicable  but  upon  one 
exclusive  hypothesis,  the  correctness  of  Aristotle's  exposition  of  Plato's 
real  doctrine  of  Ideas.  We  refer,  of  course,  to  the  sects  known  as  Eealists, 
and  Nominalists.  The  former  sect,  as  the  world  very  well  knows,  origin- 
ated with  Plato,  and  the  latter  with  Aristotle.  What  were  the  doctrines 
of  these  sects  ]  *  The  Realists,'  in  the  language  of  Mr.  Lewes,  '  maintain 
that  every  General  Term  (or  Abstract  Idea),  such  as  Man,  Virtue,  etc.,  has 
a  real  and  independent  existence,  quite  irrespective  of  any  concrete  indi- 


PLATO. 


251 


vidual  determination,  such  as  Smith,  Benevolence,  etc.  The  Nominalists, 
on  the  contrary,  maintain  that  all  General  Terms  are  but  the  creations  of 
the  mind,  designating  no  distinct  entities,  being  merely  used  as  marks  of 
aggregate  conceptions.'  Did  Plato  and  Aristotle  divide  philosophic 
thought  against  itself,  and  that  in  respect  to  a  doctrine  about  which  the 
former  agreed  with  the  latter  1  The  world,  we  reply,  has  not  thus  mis- 
understood these  men  in  regard  to  a  single  doctrine  about  which  an  issue 
was  slanderously  originated  by  one  of  them  against  the  other,  when  no  real 
difference  of  opinion  existed  between  them  in  respect  to  it. 

4.  Our  next  argument  is  based  upon  the  fact  that  language  employed 
by  Plato  himself,  to  represent  his  own  doctrine,  admits  of  no  other  con- 
struction but  that  which  Aristotle  put  upon  it.  Ideas,  as  thoughts  in  the 
mind,  may  be,  and  are,  archetypes ;  but  are  they  *  essences  1  The  universe 
is  constituted  after  a  model  in  the  mind  of  God.  But  do  they,  with 
matter,  constitute  the  universe  1  Do  Ideas,  as  thoughts  in  the  mind  of  God, 
exist  by  themselves,  in  a  region  above  the  heavens,  and  become  visible 
there  to  the  Reason,  as  the  mind  moves  round  in  a  circle  ?  Do  God's 
Ideas,  or  thoughts,  exist  theye  as  *  essence,  that  which  really  exists,  colour- 
less, formless,  and  intangible '?  A  *  colourless  '  thouglit !  It  is  a  slander 
upon  Plato,  even  worse  than  that  which  some  moderns  attribute  to 
Aristotle,  to  affirm  that  he  thus  expressed  himself.  Aristotle  did  not 
misunderstand,  or  misrepresent  his  former  instructor.  If  he  did,  Plato 
alone  was  in  fauit  in  the  matter.  Let  anyone  carefully  read  over  the 
passages  which  we  have  cited  from  Plato,  and  multitudes  of  others  of  the 
same  character  might  be  adduced,  and  then  determine  for  himself  what 
such  language  means. 

Consequences  which  follow  from  each  Exposition  which  has  beek 
GIVEN  of  Plato's  Doctrine  op  Ideas. 

Two,  and  only  two,  expositions  have  been  given  of  Plato's  doctrine  of 
Ideas — that  of  Aristotle — and  the  modern  one  which  affirms  these  Ideas, 
as  understood  by  him,  to  be  *  the  eternal  thoughts  of  the  Divine  In- 
tellect' Important  consequences  follow  from  each  of  these  constructions, 
consequences  to  each  of  which  special  attention  is  now  invited.  We 
will  first  consider  the  construction  last  designated.  Among  the  conse- 
quences necessarily  following  from  this  construction,  we  adduce  the 
following : 

Consequences  resulting  from  the  Exposition  which  affirms  Plato's  Ideas  to  be 

*  the  Eternal  Thoughts  of  the  Divine  Intellect.' 

1.  According  to  this  construction,  while  we  have  no  faculty  by  which 

we  can  know  at  all   *the   things  which  are   made,'  or   can   apprehend 

matter  itself  but  by  '  a  bastard  kind  of  knowledge,'  we  have  a  faculty 


254  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

which,  *  in  an  intuitive  manner.'  looks  off,  not  only  into  infinite  space 
and  perceives  real  existences  as  they  are,  but  also  looks  directly  into  the 
infinite  and  eternal  mind,  and  perceives  'the  Divine  thoughts  '  eternally 
dwelling  there,  the  thought-archetypes  in  conformity  to  which  God 
created  the  universe,  yes,  even  the  thought-models  after  which  craftsmen 
and  artists  of  all  ages  shape  their  productions.  Further,  the  knowledge 
which  *  Eeason,'  not  by  revelation,  or  through  the  Divine  works,  but  *  in 
an  intuitive  manner '  obtains  of  these  thought-archetypes  and  thought- 
models  in  the  mind  of  God,  *  has  a  higher  degree  of  certainty '  than  is, 
or  can  be,  obtained  of  any  forms  of  truth,  by  means  of  demonstrative 
sciences.  Did  Plato  teach  such  a  doctrine  as  that?  and  if  he  did,  who 
will  endorse  it  %  If  we  know  anything,  we  know  this,  that  no  one 
Intelligent  can,  *  in  an  intuitive  manner,'  know  the  thoughts  which  exist 
in  the  mind  of  another,  and  especially  know  these  with  '  a  higher  degree 
of  certainty '  than  we  can  obtain  of  any  truth  in  the  pure  sciences.  We 
can  know  God's  thought-archetypes  and  thought-models,  not  *in  an  in- 
tuitive manner,'  but  by  direct  revelation  from  Him,  or  through  His 
works. 

2.  The  doctrine  of  the  certainty  of  knowledge,  in  all  its  actual  forms,  by 
Eeason,  does,  and  must,  according  to  this  construction,  rest  upon  mere 
assumption.  Reason,  as  the  organ  of  necessarily  and  intuitively  implied 
knowledge,  was  unknown  to  Plato  and  his  adherents.  Knowledge 
through  perception  is  repudiated,  as  having  no  validity  ;  while  know- 
ledge through  Reason  is  affirmed  to  have  absolute  certainty.  Suppose 
that  we  do  have  a  consciously  direct,  immediate,  and  intuitive  vision  of 
the  thought-archetypes  and  thought-models,  in  the  mind  of  God,  or  of  any 
form  of  real  existence  in  space.  "We  have,  undeniably,  and  absolutely, 
and  just  as  consciouslj',  direct,  immediate,  and  intuitive,  vision  of  the  self 
and  not-self.  On  what  'grounds  and  arguments  'is  the  validity  of  know- 
ledge in  the  first  form  affirmed,  and  that  in  the  last  denied  ?  We  un- 
deniably, in  such  a  case,  make  a  distinction  without  a  difference.  We 
lay  down  this  proposition  as  having  self-evident,  or  demonstrative,  va- 
lidity, that  if  the  validity  of  knowledge,  by  Perception,  is  denied,  that  of 
knowledge,  by  Reason,  cannot  be  vindicated. 

3.  According  to  this  construction,  thoughts,  and  not  substances  nor 
causes,  have  real  being.  Ideas,  according  to  Plato,  not  only  exist,  but 
constitute  existence,  'the  things  which  really  are.'  Now,  thought,  unde- 
niably, is  neither  essence,  nor  substance,  nor  being,  but  a  state  of  mind. 
To  represfent  a  mere  mental  state  as  an  '  essence,'  as  *  existence  per  se^  as 
the  sum  and  substance  of  what '  really  exists,'  is  a  most  palpable  absurdity, 
an  absurdity  which  never  had  place  in  the  mind  of  such  a  thinker  as 
Plato.  This  construction  of  Plato's  doctrine  of  Ideas,  which  makes  such 
Ideas  'Divine  thoughts,'  cannot  be  vindicated.     But  the  opposite  c6u- 


PLATO.  255 

structinn  of  this  doctrine  involves  consequences  wliich  render  it  demon- 
stratively evident  that  that  doctrine  in  neither  form  can  be  true.  Among 
these  consequences,  we  simply  designate  the  following : 

Consequences  Resulting  from  the  Doctrine  that  Plato's  Ideas  are  Real 
Separate  Existences. 

1.  The  universe  is  not  only  constructed  in  accordance  with  archetypes 
which  have  an  eternal  and  separate  existence,  but  is,  in  part,  con4'duted 
of  these  archetypes.  *  The  universe,'  says  Plato,  '  is  constituted  of  Idea, 
Matter,  and  Sensible  Objects,  the  offspring  of  the  two.'  The  archetype 
must  be  one  thing,  and  the  creation,  formed  in  conformity  to  the  arche- 
type, must  be  another.  Plato  makes  the  two,  in  part,  at  least,  one  and 
identical. 

2.  According  to  this  doctrine,  the  real  doctrine  of  Plato,  objects  pos- 
sessed of  colour,  form,  and  tangibility,  were  constructed,  not  after 
thought-archetypes,  or  thought-models,  but  after  real  and  separately  exist- 
ing archetypes  and  models,  which  are  utterly  '  colourless,  formless,  and 
intangible.'  What  if  an  individual  should  tell  us  that  he  had  seen  a 
visible  model  for  a  building,  a  real  house,  a  model  which  had  neither 
colour,  form,  nor  tangibility  ?  Plato  was,  undeniably,  right  in  affirming 
it  to  be  impossible  for  God  himself  to  make  more  than  one  such  model 
table,  or  bed.     We  sincerely  doubt  whether  he  ever  did  make  any  such. 

3.  We  deem  it  important  to  notice  but  one  additional  consequence  of 
this  affirmed,  and  what  we  regard  as  the  real,  doctrine  of  Plato.  It  is 
this  :  Of  objects  utterly  void  of  colour,  form,  and  tangibility,  and  existing 
apart  by  themselves,  away  off  above  the  heavens,  we  can  have,  by  Reason, 
'  in  an  intuitive  manner,'  a  more  certain  knowledge,  than  we  can  of 
demonstrative  truth,  while  of  palpable  realities  within  and  immediately 
around  us,  we  can  have,  at  best,  but  *a  bastard  kind  of  knowledge.' 
This  Reason,  while  utterly  blind  to  things  immediately  before  it,  and 
with  but  a  very  obscure  insight  in  the  sphere  of  the  demonstrative  sciences, 
has  real  omniscience  in  respect  to  colourless,  shapeless,  and  intangible 
entities  existing  somewhere  in  infinite  space  above  '  High  Olympus.'  In 
every  form  and  aspect  in  which  this  world-renowned  doctrine  of  Ideas  is 
rightly  contemplated,  it  stands  revealed  as  characterized  by  the  greatest 
conceivable  absurdities. 

General  Remarks  upon  Plato  as  a  World-thinkeb. 
As  our  object  is  a  criticism  of  the  system  of  Plato,  and  not  of  his  entire 
teachings,  we  omit  all  notice  of  that  portion  of  his  writings  which  does 
not  strictly  fall  within  our  specific  line  of  thought  and  inquiry.  There 
are  certain  general  reflections,  however,  pertaining  to  him,  aa  ft  world' 
thinker,  to  which  we  deem  it  important  to  refer. 


256  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


Plato,  when  in  the  Sphere  of  Socratic  Thought,  and  when  Philosophizing. 

There  were  two  distinct  spheres  of  thought  in  which  the  mind  of 
Plato,  from  time  to  time,  moved— -that  of  Common-sense,  or  the  Socratic 
sphere,  and  that  in  which,  under  the  affirmed  insight  of  Reason,  he  con- 
sidered himself  as  philosophizing.  Hiov  does  Plato  himself  appear  to  he 
aware,  at  all  times,  in  which  sphere  bis  thoughts  are  moving.  When  in 
the  former  sphere,  few  men,  if  any,  not  under  the  light  of  inspiration, 
ever  uttered  more  of  truth,  or  clothed  his  utterances  in  better  form,  than 
did  this  wonderful  man.  Here  we  listen  with  the  deepest  interest  and 
conscious  profit  to  his  teachings  iu  regard  to  the  soul,  God,  duty,  immor- 
tality, and  retribution. 

When,  however,  he  closes  his  intellect  to  all  facts  of  perception,  and, 
with  the  Oriental  Yogee,  and  modern  Transcendentalist,  as  *he  begins  to 
philosophize,'  '  puts  himself  into  a  state  of  not-knowing,'  now  he  is  one  of 
the  most  unsafe  and  lawless  thinkers  the  world  ever  knew.  Take  the 
following,  as  one  example  of  his  gravest  utterances  in  The  Laivs :  '  We 
say,  then,  that  we  ought  not  to  search  after  the  greatest  good,  and  the 
whole  order  of  the  world,  nor  to  be  busy  in  explaining  the  cause  (of 
things),  for  it  is  not  holy.  It  seems,  indeed,  that  if  the  contrary  took 
place,  it  would  take  place  correctly.' 

In  the  Timceus  the  Creator  of  the  universe  is,  in  reality,  identified 
with  Brahm  of  the  Hindoos.  First  of  all,  each  world  is  organized  as  an 
animal  animated  by  a  soul,  and  thus  the  earth,  the  sun,  moon,  planets, 
and  stars  became  gods,  Then  were  originated  the  various  gods  of  Greece. 
Deity  now  delivers  a  formal  speech  to  the  various  generated  divinities, 
committing  to  them  the  government  of  the  universe,  and  devolving  upon 
them  the  responsibility  of  completing  the  work  of  creation  and  governing 
all  things  after  that  consummation  should  be  reached.  '  Three  classes  of 
mortals,'  the  generated  gods  are  told,  *  yet  remain  to  be  created.  Unless 
these  be  created,  then,  the  universe  will  be  imperfect ;  for  it  will  not 
contain  within  it  every  kind  of  animal,  though  it  ought,  in  order  to  be 
quite  perfect.'  These  Deity  did  not  himself  create,  because  in  that  case 
they  would  ♦  become  equal  to  the  gods.'  Man  accordingly,  with  the 
inferior  animals,  was  left  for  the  gods  to  crea^-e.  We  now  come  to  the 
passage  in  which  the  Supreme  Divinity  is  identified  with  Brahm.  'The 
Creator,  after  arranging  all  these  particulars,  then  retired  to  his  accus- 
tomed repose.'  In  the  same  dialogue  there  is  fully  set  forth  the  doctrine 
of  transmigration,  and  that,  with  very  slight  deviations,  in  a  strictly 
Oriental  form.  The  Timceus,  which  contains  these  doctrines,  is  one  of 
the  latest  and  most  strictly  expository  of  all  the  productions  of  Plato. 
We  have  here,  consequently,  his  most  deliberate  and  material  teachings. 


PL  A  TO.  257 

No  writer  ever  was  a  more  intense  polytheist  than  he,  and  his  theology, 
when  he  is  philosophizing,  is  as  strictly  Oriental  in  fact  and  form. 

Flato,  as  furnishing  another  example  of  the  validity  of  h  priori  insight  and 
of  the  b,  priori  method  of  Philosophizing. 

No  philosopher  was  ever  more  avowedly  and  strictly  b,  priori  in  his 
entire  method  of  philosophizing  than  Plato.  All  facts  of  perception  are 
expressly  located  by  him  within  the  circle  of  *  opinion,'  and  are  as  ex- 
pressly repudiated  as  data  for  scientific  deduction.  *The  knowledge 
which  by  Reason,  in  an  intuitive  manner,  we  acquire  of  real  existence  and 
intelligible  things,'  of  such  truths  only,  he  afl&rms,  we  have  absolute 
certainty,  and  of  truths  thus  acquired,  we  have,  he  also  affirms,  *  a  higher 
degree  of  certainty  than  the  knowledge  which  belongs  to  what  are  com- 
monly called  the  sciences.'  Among  the  sciences.  Geometry  is  expressly 
specified  by  Plato.  For  forty  years,  at  least,  this  philosopher  was 
employed  in  developing  and  perfecting  'the  knowledge  which  by  Eeason, 
in  an  intuitive  manner,  we  may  acquire  of  real  existence  and  intelligible 
things,'  and  the  results  of  his  discoveries  in  this  high  sphere  of  affirmed 
absolute  knowledge  we  have  in  his  multitudinous  writings.  /Eneas 
affirmed  that  if  Troy  could  have  been  '  defended,  it  would  have  been  by 
his  right  hand.'  The  same  Plato  might  have  affirmed  in  respect  to 
Eeason,  as  the  infallible  organ  of  absolute  truth.  If  such  validity  can  be 
vindicated  for  it,  this  end  would  have  really  and  practicably  been 
accomplished  by  'the  divine  philosopher.'  We  are  now  in  circumstances 
most  favourable  to  test,  through  Plato,  the  validity  of  this  faculty  as 
such  an  organ.  We  may  in  the  first  place  test  its  validity  by  referring 
to  the  character  of  its  actual  revelations  through  him.  We  may  then 
compare  these  revelations  with  those  obtained  by  other  world-renowned 
philosophers  who  have  sought  for  absolute  truth  by  the  same  method, 
and  in  the  affirmed  use  of  the  same  faculty. 

For  *  knowledge  obtained  through  Reason,  in  an  intuitive  manner,  of 
real  existence  and  intelligible  things,*  Plato  expressly  claims,  '  a  higher 
degree  of  certainty  than  the  knowledge  which  belongs  to  what  are 
commonly  called  the  sciences,'  to  Geometry,  for  example,  a  science  to 
which  he  refers  as  illustrating  his  meaning.  A  peculiarity  of  demon- 
strated truth  is  this  :  when  the  demonstration  has  once  been  understood, 
that  truth  is  never,  and  never  can  be,  doubted  in  any  subsequent  age,  but 
absolutely  commands  conviction  for  all  future  time.  Now  if  Plato,  or 
any  other  thinker,  has  given  us  real  '  knowledge  by  Reason,  in  an  intuitive 
manner,  of  real  existence  and  intelligible  things,'  as  he  affirms  himself  to 
have  done,  it  will  be  even  more  impossible  for  the  mind  to  doubt  the 
validity  of  the  forms  of  knowledge  which  he  has  furnished,  than  it  is  to 
doubt  that  of  any  demonstrated  mathematical  truth.     What  are  the  facts 

17 


258  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

of  the  case?  Take  Plato's  definition  of  'opinion,'  and  compare  with  it 
his  affirmed  revelations  of  absolute  truth  obtained  *  in  an  intuitive 
manner'  and  '  by  Eeason,'  and  we  shall  find  that  they  all  belong  to  the 
sphere  of  mere  opinion,  and  never  approach  that  of  absolute  knowledge. 
Of  these  opinions,  mist&ken  for  absolute  truths  of  Reason,  we  shall  also 
find  that  at  least  nine  tenths  of  them  failed  to  obtain  credence  in  that  age, 
have  never  since  been  accepted  as  true,  and  are  now  known  to  be  false. 
Who  now,  for  example,  believes  that  the  earth,  the  moon,  the  sun,  and 
all  the  planets  and  stars,  are  real  animals  with  souls,  and  consequently 
gods  %  Who  believes  that  the  earth  is  the  fixed  centre  of  the  universe, 
and  that  the  inclination  of  the  ecliptic  'is  the  result  of  the  inferior  per- 
fection of  the  spheres  underneath  the  spheres  of  the  fixed  stars '  %  Who 
believes  in  the  doctrine  of  the  transmigration  of  souls,  that  after  the  work 
of  creation  had  been  advanced  to  a  certain  extent,  the  Supreme  God 
'  returned  to  his  accustomed  repose,'  and  left  his  imperfect  works  to  be 
finished  by  finite,  erring,  and  rival  divinities  ?  Who  believes  that  there 
JR,  or  can  be,  a  form  of  existence  intermediate  between  being  and  non- 
being — a  something  '  which  is  and  is  not,'  which  is  *  always  becoming 
and  never  is '  1  Who  believes  that  the  beds  and  tables  which  we  see  and 
sleep  and  eat  on  have  not  '  a  real  existence,'  but  that  somewhere  above 
the  heavens  a  table  and  a  bed,  one  of  each,  exist  which  have  real  being  ? 
These  and  kindred  absurdities,  which  nobody  now  believes,  are  the  most 
of  them,  to  say  the  least,  absolute  truths  of  Reason,  according  to  Plato. 
Plato's  own  teachings  of  affirmed  absolute  truth,  render  it  demonstrably 
evident  that  the  idea,  that  Reason  in  him  and  philosophers,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  gods — Eeason,  as  he  has  defined  it — is,  or  ever  was,  an  organ  of 
absolute  truth,  is  one  of  the  wildest  hallucinations  that  ever  approached 
human  thought. 

If  we  compare  together  the  results  of  the  action  of  this  Reason  in 
Plato  and  other  world-renowned  philosophers,  the  same  conclusion  will 
force  itself  upon  us.  Reason,  through  the  same  identical  method  of 
philosophizing.  Reason  through  the  Oriental  Yogees,  Idealists,  and 
Materialists  of  all  ages,  gives,  as  the  revelation  of  absolute  truth,  Brahm, 
the  Absolute,  the  All-One,  Pure  Ideas,  two  Unknown  and  Unknowable 
Entities,  and  Matter,  each  one  in  particular  as  the  sole  existence.  Through 
this  same  Reason  in  Plato  we  have  as  another  revelation  of  absolute  truth, 
God  as  the  creator  of  all  things,  and  a  creation  distinct  from  Him ; 
a  creation  constituted  of  '  Idea,  Matter,  and  Sensible  Objects,  the  product 
of  the  two,'  things  which  always  are  and  are  not.  When  we  can  affirm 
of  systems  of  universal  being  and  its  laws,  systems  absolutely  contra- 
dictory to  one  another,  that  they  can  all  in  common  be  at  the  same  time 
true  and  not  true,  then  we  can,  as  rationally  as  we  in  such  mental  states 
can  hold  anything,  regard  Reason,  as  defined  by  these  philosophers,  as 


FLA  TO.  259 

the  or^aa  of  absolute  truth.  Until  we  have  ascended  into  the  high 
sphere  of  thought  in  which  we  can  kn'OW  that  the  same  thing  may,  at  the 
same  time,  exist  and  not  exist,  we  must,  if  we  think  rationally,  affirm 
that  Reason,  as  thus  defined,  has  no  existence  at  all  as  a  faculty  of  the 
human  mind. 

The  Facvlty,  or  Faculties,  actually  employed  by  Plato  and  other  Philosophers 
who  adopt  the  b,  priori  method  when  Philosophiz'mg. 

Every  reflective  mind  must  infer,  we  judge,  from  otir  previous  discus- 
sions, that  Reason,  as  defined  by  Plato  and  all  philosophers  who  employ 
the  b,  priori  method  in  philosophizing,  does  not  exist  at  all  as  a  faculty  of 
the  human  mind,  and  that  Reason  properly  defined  is  not  the  faculty 
which  they  use  when  thus  employed.  A  single  consideratinti  will  render 
the  validity  of  these  statements  undeniably  manifest.  Truths  of  Reason, 
when  distinctly  developed  and  apprehended,  as  in  the  pure  sciences, 
command  the  assent  of  the  race.  Now  no  philosopher,  or  school  in 
Philosophy,  that  employs  this  method,  has  ever  yet  reached  thereby  a 
single  deduction  which  has  thus  commanded  the  assent  of  mankind,  or 
even  that  of  a  majority,  or  a  considerable  minoritj',  of  philosophers. 
A  priori  thinkers  are  everywhere  and  in  all  ages  divided  into  schools, 
and  each  school,  in  all  its  principles  and  deductions,  is  in  deadly  anta- 
gonism with  every  other.  What  agreement,  but  in  their  method,  obtained, 
for  example,  between  the  schools  of  the  Vedanta,  of  Kapila,  Kanada, 
and  the  Buddhist  schools  of  Subjective  and  Pure  Idealism  in  India  t 
What  agreement  had  Zeno  of  Elea  with  Democritus,  or  either  with 
Plato?  What  agreement  have  the  schools  of  Kant,  Fichte,  Schelling, 
and  Hegel,  with  one  another,  or  either  with  that  of  Condilac  or  Comte  1 
Every  deduction  of  each  school  is  repudiated,  not  only  by  the  mass  of 
mankind,  but  by  four-fifths  of  philosophers.  How  absurd  is  the  idea 
and  pretence  that  these  philosophers  are  employing  Reason,  as  they 
define  it,  or  as  it  should  be  defined. 

What  faculty  or  faculties,  then,  do  they  employ  t  It  is,  we  answer, 
the  Judgment,  not  acting  in  conjunction  with  the  Understandiug  and 
primary  faculties,  the  only  faculties,  together  with  Memory,  with  which 
it  does  or  can  act  in  real  science,  but  the  Judgment  under  the  lead  of  the 
Imagination  and  Will.  The  Materialist  imagines  Matter  to  be  the  only 
form  of  real  existence,  and  then  compels  his  Judgment  to  construct  a 
system  of  universal  being  and  its  laws  from  the  data  thus  furnished. 
The  Idealist  imagines  two  unknown  and  unknowable  entities,  or  spirit,  or 
pure  thought,  to  exist  as  the  sole  principle  of  all  things,  and  then  compels 
his  Judgment  to  originate  a  system  from  which  all  material  elements  are 
utterly  excluded.  The  Sceptic  imagines  this,  that  we  '  don't  know  that 
we  don't  know  anything,'  and  then  compels  his  Judgment  to  construct  a 

17—2 


26o  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

system  from  '  imaginary  substrata.'  Plato  imagined  the  beiug  of  God  as 
the  Creator  of  a  universe  distinct  from  himself,  then  imaj^ined  that 
universe  as  *  constituted  of  Idea,  Matter,  and  Sensible  Objects,  the  pro 
duct  of  the  two,'  and  finally  compelled  his  Judgment  to  give  forth  a 
system  constructed  from  the  materials  thus  famished.  In  all  cases,  the 
Imagination  and  Will  furnish  the  material  and  form  of  the  building,  while 
the  Judgment  constructs  it  accordingly.  On  no  other  hypothesis  can  the 
existence  and  form  of  these  antagonistic  systems  be  accounted  for.  The 
'  Divine  Commedia  *  is  no  more  a  creation  of  the  Imagination  than  are  the 
systems  of  Vyasa,  Kapila,  Kanada,  Gautama  Buddha,  Zeno,  Democritue, 
Plato,  Kant,  Fichte,  Schelling,  Hegel,  Condilac,  Comte,  and  Spencer. 
The  validity  of  these  statements  will  become  more  and  more  manifest  as  we 
advance  in  our  criticism. 

Plato  as  a  Logman. 

One  or  two  examples  must  siiffice,  as  illustratire  of  the  character  of 
Plato  as  a  logician.  '  The  universe,'  he  affirms,  is  constituted  of  Idea, 
Matter,  and  Sensible  Things,  the  product  of  the  two.'  '  Idea  and  Matter  ' 
are  with  Plato  actually  existCdg  entities,  eternal  verities.  '  Sensible 
Things  '  are  a  something  *  intermediate  between  existence  and  non-exist- 
ence.' Can  any  philosopher  tell  us  how,  or  by  what  possibility,  the 
resultant  of  the  union  of  two  such  entities  can  be  a  tertium  quid,  which 
'is  of  the  nature  of  that  which  is  and  is  not '? 

The  painter  and  craftsman  originate  productions  which  are  mere  copies, 
for  example,  of  a  single  model  chair  and  table  which  exists  somewhere 
above  the  heavens.  The  models  are  really  existing  objects  ;  the  copies, 
because  they  are  copies,  have  no  real  existence  at  all.  '  If,  tlien,  he '  (the 
craftsman)  ''does  not  make  the  idea  of  the  bed'  (the  real  bed),  'he 
makes  nothing  real,  but  only  something  which  represents  that  which 
really  exists.  And  if  anyone  maintain  that  the  carpenter's  work  has  real 
existence,  he  will  be  in  error.'  That,  then,  which  is  constructed  after  no 
model  at  alt,  really  exists ;  but  that  which  is  constructed  after  a  model 
has  no  real  existence.  The  universe,  then,  does  not  exist ;  for  it,  accord- 
ing to  Plato,  and  according  to  truth,  was  constructed  after  a  Divine  model. 
There  is,  undeniably,  no  incompatibility  between  the  idea  of  the  real 
existence  of  a  model,  and  of  a  bed,  table,  or  building,  constructed  after  a 
model. 

'  Plato's  proof  of  the  world  being  an  animal,'  says  Mr  Lewes,  '  is  too 
curious  a  specimen  of  analogical  reasoning  to  be  passed  over.'  There  is 
•warmth  in  a  human  being;  there  is  warmth  also  in  the  world.  The 
human  being  is  composed  of  various  elements,  and  is  therefore  called  a 
body ;  the  world  is  also  composed  of  various  elements,  and  is,  therefore, 
a  body  ;  and,  as  our  bodies  have  souls,  the  body  of  the  world  must  have 
a  souL' 


PLATO.  261 

ThA  Doctrine  of  Innate  Ideas. 

The  doctrine  of  Plato  on  this  sul«ject  is  very  correctly  stated  by  Dr. 
Cocker,  to  wit,  '  Thei'e  are  ideas  in  the  mind  which  have  not  been  derived 
from  without,  and  which  therefore  the  mind  brought  into  the  present 
state  of  being.'  According  to  Dr.  Hodge,  'The  knowledge  of  God  is 
innate.'  Such  knowledge,  he  defines  as  *  opposed  to  knowledge  founded 
on  experience.'  '  All  that  is  meant  is,  that  the  mind  is  so  constituted 
that  it  perceives  certain  things  to  be  true  without  proof  and  without 
instruction.'  *  The  word  innate  simply  indicates  the  source  of  the  know- 
ledge.' According  to  this  definition,  all  our  knowledge  through  perception 
in  both  its  forms,  external  and  internal,  must  be  innate.  '  We  are  so  consti- 
tuted that  we  perceive  certain  things '  (all  facts  of  perception)  '  to  be  true 
without  proof  and  without  instruction.'  Nor  is  a  knowledge  of  these 
facts  *  acquired  by  a  process  of  research  or  reasoning.'  Ideas  of  all  kinds 
must  constitute  a  faculty  of  the  soul,  or  exist,  if  they  exist  at  all,  as 
actual  forms  of  thought.  If  ideas  constitute  a  faculty  of  the  soul,  per- 
ceptions, conceptions,  memories,  judgments,  and  imaginings,  are  not  forms 
of  thought,  but  constitute  so  many  different  faculties,  and  these  last  are 
just  as  innate  as  is  that  one  constituted  by  ideas.  'No  thinker,  we  are 
quite  sure,  will  perpetrate  the  absurdity  of  confounding  ideas  of  any  kind 
with  any  original  faculty  of  the  soul.  Nor  will  anyone  affirm  that  ideas, 
as  forms  of  thought,  existed  in  the  mind  before  it  began  to  think  at  alL 
Equally  absurd  would  it  be  to  affirm  that  ideas  of  Reason,  in  distinction 
from  other  forms  of  thought,  necessarily,  on  account  of  the  nature  of  the 
faculty  of  Reason,  arise  in  the  mind  whenever  the  proper  conditions  are 
fulfilled,  this  being  equally  true  of  all  forms  of  thought  acquired  through 
any  other  faculty.  To  affirm,  then,  innateness  of  ideas  of  Reason  in  dis- 
tinction from  other  forms  of  thought,  is  to  use  words  without  meaning, 
or  to  involve  ourselves  in  error.  Either  no  forms  of  thought  are  innate, 
or  all  forms  are  equally  so. 

What  is  the  truth  in  this  case?  Prior  to  the  commencement  of  thought 
in  any  and  every  mind,  the  soul  exists,  and  the  world,  time,  space,  and 
God  exist,  the  soul,  as  a  faculty,  and  all  the  realities  designated,  as  objects 
of  knowledge.  All  these  realities  in  common,  however,  are  to  the 
soul,  as  objects  of  knowledge,  as  if  they  did  not  exist  at  alL  The  action 
of  each  intellectual  faculty  depends  upon  the  fulfilment  of  the  proper 
conditions.  When  these  conditions  are  fulfilled,  said  faculty  must  act, 
and  the  form  of  knowledge  thus  furnished  will  be  as  is  the  nature  and 
character  of  the  objects  of  cognition.  The  question,  what  are  these  con- 
ditions, involves  inquiries  of  fundamental  importance  in  Philosophy. 
The  condition  of  the  action  of  consciousness,  for  example,  is  the  pre- 
existence  in  the  mind  of  some  positive  mental  state,  some  thought,  feeling, 


262  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

or  act  of  will.  When  such  state  is  induced,  cousciousness  directly  and 
immediately  apprehends  such  state,  and  the  miud  in  the  same,  as  they 
really  are.  The  condition  of  the  action  of  Sense-perception  is  the  imme- 
diate presentation  to  the  mind  of  some  external  material  substance,  a 
substance  to  which  the  mind  is  correlated  as  a  faculty,  and  it  to  the  raiud  as 
an  olject  of  knowledge.  When  this  condition  is  fullilled,  then  a  percep- 
tion, or  knowledge  of  that  object  as  it  is,  necessarily  arises.  The  condition 
of  the  action  of  Eeason  is  the  actual  perception,  through  Sense  or  Con- 
sciousness, of  some  fact,  or  reality,  the  existence,  or  occurrence,  of  which 
necessarily  implies  the  existence  of  some  reality  not  perceived.  When 
such  perception  occurs,  lieason  necessarily  apprehends  the  reality  whose 
existence  is  implied  by  what  is  perceived.  When  nothing  is  perceived, 
fleason  cannot  act  at  all.  When  any  fact  is  perceived.  Reason  must  ap- 
prehend the  unseen  reality  whose  existence  is  necessarily  implied  by  the 
fact  which  is  perceived.  Through  external  and  internal  perception,  we, 
as  we  have  said  elsewhere,  apprehend  body,  succession,  phenomena,  events, 
and  conditioned  facts.  Through  Eeason,  on  the  occurrence  of  such  per- 
ceptions, and  as  implied  by  the  facts  perceived,  we  apprehend  Space, 
Time,  Substance,  Cause,  and  God,  as  the  unconditioned  Cause  of  all  that 
conditionally  exists.  Thus,  between  the  perceived  and  implied  forms  of 
knowledge,  and,  consequently,  between  Eeason  and  the  other  primary 
intuitive  faculties,  relations  perfectly  fixed  and  determinable  exist. 
Eeason  can  no  more  act,  but  upon  the  condition  of  the  prior  action  of 
those  faculties,  than  there  can  be  an  event  without  a  cause.  Nor  can  it, 
by  any  possibility,  give  any  more,  nor  less,  nor  any  other  forms  of  know- 
lodge  than  those  implied  by  facts  and  objects  of  actual  perception. 

Here  we  have  absolute  criteria  by  which  we  can  distinguish  all  real 
from  assumed  forms  of  knowledge  by  Eeason.  The  validity  of  the 
former  can  always  be  verified,  as  necessarily  implied  by  facts  of  actual 
knowledge,  as  perception.  The  latter  can  be  as  absolutely  shown  to 
pertain  to  mere  '  imaginary  substrata  '  assumed  to  be  objects  of  intuitions 
of  Eeason.  There  is  not  a  solitary  reality  known  through  Eeason,  which 
cinriot  be  demonstrated  to  bo  known  as  implied  by  facts  and  objects  of 
perception.  Eeason  has  no  independent  insight  of  '  being  per  se,'  or 
of  '  being  in  se,'  or  of  any  other  realities.  Take  away  facts  of  percep- 
tion, and  Eeason  is  as  absolutely  blind  and  unseeing  as  are  Sense  and 
Consciousness  in  the  total  absence  of  all  objects  to  be  perceived,  and 
Eeason,  we  repeat,  can  apprehend  nothing  more,  and  nothing  less,  of 
'  being  joer  se,'  or  of  '  being  in  se,'  but  forms  of  the  unseen  whose  ex- 
istence is  necessarily  implied  by  facts  which  are  perceived.  Ideas  of 
Reason  are  innate  in  the  same  sense,  and  in  no  other,  than  knowledge 
through  the  other  intuitive  faculties  is.  Take  any  idea  of  Eeason  you 
please,  and  all  the  evidence  that  can  be  adduced  to  prove  it  innate,  can 


PLATO.  263 

be  adduced  in  all  its  strength  in  favour  of  the  claims  of  any  other  form 
of  intuitive  knowledge  to  the  possession  of  tlie  same  characteristic. 

As  we  are  now  upon  the  subject,  we  will  merely  allude  to  the  con- 
ditions on  which  the  Secondary  Intellectual  Faculties  do,  and  must,  act. 
When  the  elements  of  thought  given  by  the  Primary  Faculties  are  present 
in  the  mind,  the  Understanding  does  and  must  take  the  initiative,  and 
combine  these  elements  into  conceptions  or  notiona  In  the  absence  of 
such  elements,  this  faculty  cannot  act  at  alL  When  they  are  present, 
it  must  act. 

The  condition  of  the  actions  of  the  judgment  is  the  prior  origination 
in  the  Consciousness  of  conceptiona  When  these  are  absent  it  cannot, 
and  when  they  are  present  it  must,  act.  The  conditions  of  the  activity 
of  Memory  and  the  Imagination  are  too  obvious,  and  too  universall}'' 
acknowledged,  to  require  specification  or  elucidation. 

These  are  the  real  and  the  only  real  faculties  of  the  human  Intelligence, 
and  these,  also,  are  the  immutable  conditions  of  their  action.  These 
faculties,  too,  are  possessed,  though  some  of  them  in  different  degrees,  by 
all  mankind  in  common,  philosophers  among  the  rest.  When  philo- 
sophers claim,  for  themselves,  the  possession  of  any  faculty  or  faculties  not 
strictly  common  to  the  race,  while  *  some  may  think  them  wondrous 
wise,'  the  world  ought  to  *  believe  them  mad.' 

Thb  Idea  op  Eeasox  as  a  Faodlty  possessed  onlt  by  Philosophers, 
The  ancient  Yogees  and  modern  Transcendentalists,  in  common  with 
Plato,  claim  for  themselves  a  special  faculty  denominated  Reason,  or 
intellectual  intuition,  a  special  faculty  denied  to  the  rest  of  man- 
kind. We  have  already  shown  that  this  faculty,  as  these  thinkers  have 
defined  it,  has  no  existence  in  any  mind.  One  great  central  fact  in  respect 
to  Reason,  as  properly  defined,  we  deem  it  important  here  to  state.  Reason 
is  a  faculty  not  only  possessed  by  all  mankind  not  demented  or  deranged, 
but  equally  by  all.  Other  faculties  are  possessed  by  diflferent  individuals 
in  ditierent  degrees.  Reason,  on  the  other  hand,  in  all  minds  in  which 
it  exists  at  all,  exists  in  equal  degrees.  Hence  it  is,  that  all  mankind 
have  common  and  equally  absolute  apprehensions  and  convictions  in 
regard  to  time,  space,  substance,  cause,  personal  identity,  God,  duty,  im- 
mortality, and  retribution.  Truths  of  Reason  are  absolute  truths,  and 
when  known  at  all,  they  are  not  known  in  different  degrees,  but  abso- 
lutely known-  All  men  know  as  absolutely  as  do  philosophers,  that 
every  object  exists  somewhere  and  in  some  time,  that  every  event  has  a 
cause,  that  phenomena  imply  substance,  and  that  things  equal  to  the 
same  things  are  equal  to  one  another.  The  same  holds  true  in  all  other 
cases.  When  Plato  proved,  that  in  the  mind  of  Meno's  slave  there 
existed  the  ideas  of  time,  space,  substance,  cause,  eta,  proof  was  pre- 


?64  ^  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

sented,  not  that  the  soul  had  existed  ia  a  prior  state  of  being,  nor  that 
it  brought  these  ideas  with  it,  when  it  came  into  the  world,  or  that  it 
lias  any  innate  ideas  of  any  kind,  but  that  the  faculty  of  Eeason  exists 
alike  in  all  rational  minds,  and  equally  in  alL 

Three  great  Central  Truths,  for  the  first  Scientific  Enunciation  of  which  the 
world  is  indebted  to  Plato. 
The  individual  who  first  announces  a  great  central  truth,  may  justly 
be  regarded  as  a  leading  benefactor  to  his  species.  Plato's  psychology, 
his  doctrine  of  Ideas,  and  his  method  of  philosophizing,  remain  but  as 
recorded  errors  of  the  past.  There  are  three  great  truths,  however,  which, 
in  a  scientific  form,  he  was  the  first  to  announce — truths  which  will  ever 
remain  as  central  lights  in  the  firmament  of  science — truths,  also,  the 
enunciation  of  which  distinguish  him  as  one  of  the  greatest  thinkers  of 
the  race.  Plato,  as  we  have  stated,  is  the  first  thinker  who  formally 
propounded  the  doctrine  of  creation  as  an  event  of  time.  This,  as  we  have 
iilso  stated,  is  the  great  central  fact  about  which  the  whole  argument  for 
the  being,  creative  agency,  and  providence  of  God  must  revolve,  if  that 
argument  shall  take  on  the  real  characteristic  of  scientific  validity.  Paley 
infers,  from  marks  of  design  in  a  watch,  that  it  was  the  production  of  a 
watchmaker.  We  will  assume  that  the  watch  has  existed  from  eternity, 
that  is,  that  it  was  not  made  at  all.  How  can  we  argue,  from  any  facts 
in  it,  to  the  existence  and  agency,  in  its  production,  of  a  watchmaker? 
So,  if  we  assume  that  the  universe  has  existed  from  eteruity,  that  is,  that 
it  was  not  made  at  all,  whatever  appearances  of  design  may  be  found  in 
it,  no  ground  remains  for  our  *  faith  that  the  worlds  were  made  by  the 
Word  of  God.'  If  the  world  was  not  made,  that  is,  if  creation  was  not 
an  event  of  time,  there  is  no  world-maker  to  be  inquired  about.  The 
undeniable  and  demonstrably  evincible  fact  of  creation,  as  an  event  of 
time,  absolutely  evinces  the  doctrine  of  God  as  the  Creator  of  the 
universe.  Plato  has  the  high  honour  of  having  first,  in  a  scientific  form, 
furnished  to  Theism  this  great  central  fact. 

In  his  Tenth  Book  of  the  Laws,  in  an  argument  against  Atheists,  he 
first  of  all  distinguishes  two  conceivable  classes,  among  others,  of  objects 
capable  of  motion — those  which  are  incapable  of  motion  but  from  an 
impelling  power  from  without,  and  can  communicate  to  others  motion 
but  through  the  momentum  thus  received — and  those  capable  of  self- 
originated  motion,  in  the  first  place,  and  then  of  communicating  motion 
to  other  objects.  Matter  is  a  power  of  the  class  first  designated.  It 
cannot  originate  motion  at  all,  and  it  cannot  communicate  motion  but 
through  the  momentum  which  it  has  passively  received.  It  becomes 
demonstrably  evident  that  the  originating  cause  of  creation,  which  was 
an  event  of  time,  cannot  have  been  a  material  one,  it  being  undeniable 


PLATO.  265 

that  that  cause  must  have  possessed  the  power  of  self-motion,  and  through 
this  self-originated  motion  of  imparting  motion  to  matter,  and  thus 
bringing  order  out  of  chaoa  That  cause,  on  the  other  band,  must  have 
been  spirituaL  Mind  only  is  conceivably  capable  of  self-originated  action 
in  any  form.  He  therefore,  by  whom  '  the  worlds  were  made,'  must  have 
been  a  mind,  a  free,  self-conscious  personality.  Such  is  the  sum  of  the 
argument  presented  in  full  detail  in  the  work  to  which  we  have  referred. 
In  this  argument,  together  with  the  great  central  fact  above  adduced,  the 
argument  for  the  being,  creative  agency,  and  providence  of  a  personal 
God,  attains,  in  its  strictest  and  most  scientific  form,  demonstrative 
certainty.  To  us  it  has  long  been  a  matter  of  surprise  and  deep  regret 
that  Theists  have,  almost  universally,  ignored  the  forms  of  the  argument 
for  the  doctrine  of  God,  in  which  Plato  has  presented  it.  As  long  as  this 
form  of  the  argument  is  ignored,  the  doctrine  under  consideration  will 
fail  to  possess  the  appearance  even  of  a  truth  of  science. 

The  third  great  central  truth,  which  Plato  was  first  to  announce  in  a 
scientific  form,  we  have  before  stated.  It  is  that  of  the  human  soul  as 
capable  of  free,  self-determined,  and,  therefore,  of  morally  responsible 
activity.  If  man  can  act  but  through,  and  in  the  direction  of  momentum 
received  from  without,  and  can  act  upon  others  but  by  the  momentum 
thus  received,  he  is  no  more  responsible  for  his  own  activity,  or  its  results, 
than  is  a  cannon  ball  for  its  motions  and  their  results.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  soul,  God,  and  the  universe  are,  as  they  actually  are,  what 
Plato,  in  his  argument,  affirms  them  to  be,  then  God  stands  demonstrably 
revealed,  not  only  as  the  Creator  of  a  universe  worthy  of  Infinity  and 
Perfection,  but  as  an  all-wise  and  righteous  moral  Governor  over  a  count- 
less realm  of  moral  agents,  each  and  all  'created  after  bis  own  image  and 
likeness.'  We  honour  Plato,  not  for  his  avowed  method  of  philosophizing, 
for  his  psychology,  or  his  doctrine  of  Ideas,  *  things  which  can  be  shaken,' 
but  for  the  great  central  truths  of  the  science  of  sciences,  *  things  which 
cannot  be  shaken ' — truths  which  he  was  the  first  to  announce,  and  which 
■will  ever  shine  in  the  high  firmament  of  scientific  thought  as  fixed  stars 
of  the  first  magnituda 

SECTION  m. 

AEISTOTLE. 

Aristotle,  who  originated  a  system  which,  in  all  its  essential  principles 
and  deductions,  was  the  opposite  of  that  of  Plato,  was  born  at  Stagira, 
in  Thrace,  384,  and  died  at  Chalcis,  322  B.C.  In  his  eighteenth  year  he 
became  a  pupil  of  Plato,  and  remained  such  for  twenty  years.  After 
the  death  of  Plato  (347  B.c.)  he  spent  several  years  in  various  countries  ; 
seven  at  the  court  of  Philip  of  Macedon,  and  three  as  the  tutor  of  Alexander 


266  A  CRITICAL  mSTOHY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  Great.     He  then  returned  to  Athens,  and  founded,  in  the  Lyceum,  a 
school  over  which  he  presided  for  twelve  years. 

It  is  hardly  conceivable  that  two  such  minds  as  Plato  and  Aristotle,  in 
the  age  and  circumstances  in  which  they  lived,  should  agree  in  the  con- 
struction of  a  system  of  universal  being  and  its  laws.  The  temperament 
of  Plato  was  imaginative,  idealistic,  and  mystical.  That  of  Aristotle  was 
prosaic,  dry,  and  practical.  Plato  naturally  first  of  all  fixed  upon  the 
general  and  universal,  and  hardly  condescended  to  descend  to  the  indi- 
vidual. Aristotle  as  naturally  started  with  the  individual,  and  by  careful 
induction  ascended  to  the  general  The  method  natural  to  Plato  was 
the  h  piori.  The  only  leading  method  possible  to  Aristotle  was  the 
d,  jposteriari.  Each  had  powers  of  thought  and  industry  wliich  could  not 
fail  to  render  him  a  central  light  in  the  sphere  in  which  he  should  choose 
to  move. 

Aristotle's  Classification  op  the  Sciences. 
At  the  time  when  Aristotle  assumed  his  place  at  the  head  of  the 
Lyceum,  even  leadiog  thinkers  had  very  confused  ideas  of  any  proper 
classification  of  the  sciences,  or  of  the  exclusive  sphere  and  real 
principles  and  method  of  each.  Such  separation  and  classification, 
with  a  consequent  determination  of  the  true  and  exclusive  method  of 
each  science,  was  the  first  aim  of  this  great  philosopher,  and  here  we 
find,  if  not  the  chief,  one  of  his  chief  merits  as  a  teacher  and  expounder 
of  Philosophy.  Hence  the  origin  of  his  world-renowned  Organon.  In 
this  one  work  Aristotle  did  more  for  science  than  in  all  his  other  pro- 
ductions combined.  Of  the  science  of  Philosophy  he  made  a  three-fold 
division,  namely,  theoretic,  practical,  poetic.  The  object  of  the  first  is 
Ontology,  the  science  of  existence.  That  of  the  second  is  Morality,  or 
rules  for  moral  conduct,  and  naturally  divides  itself  into  two  departments 
— ethics,  or  individual,  politics,  or  social  duties.  The  third,  the  Poetic, 
refers  to  the  proper  shaping  of  materials,  or  to  'the  technically  correct 
and  artistic  creation  of  works  of  art.'  In  another  connection,  he  divides 
theoretical  Philosophy  into  Mathematics,  Physics,  and  the  '  First 
Philosophy,'  or  Metaph3'^sics.  Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  above 
classification,  the  merit  of  having  first  presented  and  developed  the  idea 
of  classification  itself  belongs  to  Aristotle,  and  in  that  idea  he  stands 
revealed  as  a  world-benefactor. 

Questions  at  Issue  between  Aristotle  and  Plato. 

Where  two  systems  stand  over  against  each  other  as  essential  opposites, 

each  will  be  best  understood  by  a  distinct  presentation  of  all  specific 

issues  between  them.     There  were  five  central  doctrines  in  respect  to 

which  Aristotle  took  open  issue  with  Plato — the  doctrine  of  Ideas ;  the 


ARISTOTLE.  267 


validity  of  knowledge  through  Sensation  or  Sense-perception;  the 
Sunium  Bonum,  or  the  Greatest  Good  ;  the  doctrine  of  pre-existing  state 
of  the  soul,  and  of  creation  as  an  event  of  time.  We  propose,  as  a  basis 
of  our  elucidation  of  the  system  of  Aristotle,  to  contrast  the  teachings  of 
each  of  these  authors  in  respect  to  each  of  these  doctrines,  and  that  in 
the  order  above  stated.  Nothing  can  be  more  delicate  or  appropriate 
than  is  the  manner  in  which  Aristotle  introduces  the  questions  at  issue 
between  himself  and  his  former  venerated  instructor. 

*  But  perhaps,'  says  Aristotle,  '  it  would  be  better  to  examine  the 
theory  of  universal  good,  and  to  inquire  what  is  meant  by  it,  although 
such  an  inquiry  involves  difficulties,  because  men  who  are  our  friemls 
have  introduced  the  doctrine  of  Ideas.  But  perhaps  it  would  be  better, 
and  even  necessary,  at  least  for  the  preservation  of  truth,  that  we  should 
do  away  with  private  feelings,  especially  as  we  are  philosophers,  for  both 
being  dear  to  us,  it  is  a  sacred  duty  to  prefer  truth.' 

The  Doctrine  of  Individxml  Existence  as  Opposed  to  that  of  Ideas. 

Plato,  as  we  have  seen,  attributed  to  generals,  or  universals,  a  real 
existence,  and  called  them  Ideas.  Aristotle,  on  the  other  hand,  not  only 
denied  this  doctrine,  but  placed  himself  on  the  opposite  extreme,  affirming 
that  nothing  really  exists  but  individual  forms  of  being.  Plato  not  only 
affirmed  this  doctrine  of  Ideas,  but  denied  all  reality  to  individuals 
excepting  so  far  as  they  participated  of  the  universal.  Aristotle  denied 
wholly  real  existence  of  universals,  excepting  so  far  as  they  were 
immanent  in  individuals.  Even  Plato's  universals,  as  defined  by  himself, 
Aristotle  affirmed  were  nothing  but  individual  forms  of  being.  Of  the 
universal  or  general  forms  of  being,  for  example,  represented  by  the 
terms  bed  and  table,  Plato  affirmed  that  there  could  by  no  possibility  be 
but  one  of  each,  that  is,  his  universal  bed  was  nothing  but  a  single  or 
individual  bed.  Plato's  doctrine  of  Ideas,  therefore,  if  it  could  be  true, 
implied  merely  an  increase  of  the  number  of  individual  existences. 
General  ideas,  therefore,  represent  no  separate  existences,  but  only  the 
common  qualities  immanent  in  each  individual  of  the  class  which  each 
general  idea  represents. 

In  favour  of  his  own  doctrine,  and  against  that  of  Plato,  the  argument 
of  Aristotle  has,  undeniably,  absolute  validity.  Whatever  objects  exist 
must  exist  as  this  or  that  particular  reality.  Nothing  is  or  can  be  real  but 
individual  forms  of  being  and  their  relations  to  one  another.  Relations 
may  be  universal,  general,  or  particular.  Individuals  alone  can  possess 
real  existence.  No  idea  can  be  more  absurd  than  that  of  a  universal 
man,  horse,  or  cow,  excepting  that  which  affirms  that  the  individual  has 
real  existence  but  by  participating  in  the  universal.  Suppose  that  a 
something  did  exist  represented  by  the  true  man,  how  can  John  and 


268  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

George  become  participants  of  this  one  universal  man,  and  not  equally  so 
with  one  another  %  This  one  universal  man  is,  undeniably,  just  as  dis- 
tinct from  John  as  the  latter  is  from  George,  In  every  point  of  light  in 
■which  Plato's  doctrine  of  Ideas  is  contemplated,  it  becomes  more  and 
more  manifested  as  an  hallucination  of  false  science ;  while  that  of 
Aristotle,  by  the  same  means,  becomes  more  and  more  distinctly  revealed 
as  an  essential  truth  of  real  science. 

The  Validiiy  of  Sensation,  or  Sense-perception. 

Sensation,  as  the  term  was  employed  by  the  Greeks,  represented  not 
only  the  sensitive  state  now  exclusively  represented  by  the  term  Sensa- 
tion, but  also  the  exercise  of  the  faculty  of  external  perception,  which  we 
designate  by  the  term  Sense.  According  to  Plato,  the  world  of  percep- 
tion, that  is,  all  objects  of  Sense-perception,  have  only  an  ideal  existence. 
What  we  actually  perceive  are  nothing  but  shadowy  reflections  of  things 
really  existing  without  us.  Matter,  and  an  organized  material  universe, 
really  exist.  Of  these  various  forms  of  existences,  we  have  no  real  know- 
ledge, and  of  the  material  universe  which  exists  behind  the  phenomenal, 
we  have,  and  can  have,  but '  a  boasted  kind  of  knowledge.'  Aristotle,  not 
only  affirmed  the  real  existence  of  an  organized  material  universe,  but 
also  affirmed  and  verified  the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  the  same. 
*  Experience,' he  says,  in  other  words,  facts,  or  phenomena,  perceived, 
'  furnishes  the  principles  of  every  science,' — and  '  phenomena  are  more  to 
be  trusted  than  the  conclusion  of  Eeason.'  Aristotle  is  here  contrasting 
his  own,  with  the  doctrine  of  Plato.  Plato  asserted,  as  we  have  seen, 
that  through  Eeason-intuitions,  we  have  absolute  knowledge  of  real  being 
and  its  laws,  and  that  through  Sensation,  we  have  no  real  knowledge  at 
all.  In  opposition  to  this  doctrine,  Aristotle  affirms,  that  through  Sense- 
perceptions,  *  phenomena,'  we  obtain  more  certain  knowledge  than  can  be 
obtained  through  reason,  as  defined  and  affirmed  by  Plato.  In  the  follow- 
ing memorable  passage,  Aristotle  thus  sets  forth  his  own  doctrine  : 

'Experience  furnishes  the  principles  of  every  science.  Thus  Astro- 
nomy is  grounded  on  observation ;  for  if  we  were  properly  to  observe  the 
celestial  phenomena,  we  might  demonstrate  the  laws  which  regulate 
them.  The  same  applies  to  other  sciences.  If  we  omit  nothing  that 
observation  can  afibrd  us  respecting  phenomena,  we  could  easily  furnish 
demonstration  of  all  that  admits  of  being  demonstrated,  and  illustrate 
that  which  is  not  susceptible  of  being  demonstrated.'  When  phenomena 
or  facts  fail  us,  he  bids  us  wait  for  their  appearance  before  deducing  our 
conchisious.  'We  must  wait,'  he  says,  'for  further  j)lu-nomena,  since 
phenomena  are  more  to  be  trusted  than  the  conclusion  of  Eeason,'  that  is, 
than  any  deductions  not  based  upon  known  facta  Sounder  and  more 
fundamental  principles  of  induction  and  deduction  were  never  before  or 


ARISTOTLE.  269 


since  introduced  into  the  sphere  of  science.     Here,  at  a  distance  of  about 
two  thousand  years,  Aristotle  anticipated  Bacon. 

The  arguments  by  which  Aristotle  vindicated  for  the  mind  a  valid 
knowledge  of  nature,  we  have  stated  in  our  remarks  upon  the  opposite 
doctrine  of  Plato.  These  arguments,  we  would  remark,  have  never  yet 
been  answered,  and  we  are  quite  sure  they  never  will  be  :  '  They  that 
depreciate  sensible  objects  as  perpetually  changing,  unstable,  and  un- 
knowable, make  the  mistake,'  he  says,  '  of  confining  their  attention  to 
the  sublunary  iuterior  of  the  Cosmos,  where  indeed  generation  and  de- 
struction largely  prevail.  But  this  is  only  a  small  portion  of  the  entire 
Cosmos.  In  the  largest  portion — the  visible,  celestial,  super-l unary 
regions — there  is  no  generation  or  destruction  at  all,  nothing  but  per- 
manence and  uniformity.  In  appreciating  the  sensible  world,  philo- 
sophers ought  to  pardon  the  short-comings  of  the  smaller  portion  on 
account  of  the  excellencies  of  the  larger  ;  and  not  condemn  both  together 
on  account  of  the  smaller.'  Wlien  philosophers  shall  cease  their  attempts 
to  demonstrate  to  the  Intelligence,  by  the  Intelligence,  that  this  same 
Intelligence  is  a  faculty  of  nescience,  and  not  of  knowledge,  philosophy, 
will  be  saved  from  its  'many  blunders  and  foolish  notions.' 

The  Summum  Bonum. 

There  is  one  great  central  doctrine  about  which  philosophers  are  yet 
in  doubt,  and  have  been  ever  since  human  thought  was  directed  to  it — 
the  doctrine  of  the  'Greatest  Good.'  One  class,  under  the  lead  of  Plato, 
place  this  in  moral  virtue,  moral  resemblance  to  God,  as  this  philosopher 
states  it.  The  other  class,  under  the  lead  of  Aristotle,  find  this  good  in 
happiness.  In  determining  this  problem,  Plato  looks  simply  at  the 
question,  what  ought  we  to  be  and  to  become  ?  His  consequent  answer  is, 
moral  virtue.  Plato  does  not  overlook  the  necessary  connection  between 
virtue  and  happiness.  '  Our  object  in  founding  the  states  is,'  he  says, 
'that  not  a  class,  but  that  all  may  be  made  as  happy  as  possible.' 
'Happiness,'  he  says  again,  'depends  on  culture  and  justice,  or  on  the 
possession  of  moral  beauty  and  goodness.'  If  by  the  doctrine,  tliat  '  the 
possession  of  moral  beauty  and  goodness '  should  be  the  em  I  of  all  our 
aims,  Plato  means,  that  absolute  conformity  to  the  law  of  duty  should 
be  the  supreme  and  all  controlling  intent  of  all  our  moral  activity,  who 
would  dispute  with  him  ]  If  he  meant,  as  he  obviously  did  not,  that 
nothing  but  the  possession  of  moral  virtue  should  be  regarded  as  a  good 
in  itself,  none  surely  ought  to  agree  with  him. 

The  explanation  which  Aristotle  gives  of  this  doctrine  is  based  upon 
an  answer  to  the  single  question,  '  What  do  all  men  desire  V  To  this 
question,  he  answers,  with  undeniable  correctness,  'happiness.'  Haj^piness, 
he  hence  concludes,  is  the  'summum  bonum,'  and  affirms,  as  his  final 


270  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

deduction,  that  the  question  what  is  right  and  wrong  in  itself,  must  he 
determined  exclusively  from  a  consideration  of  the  connection  of  the  act 
referred  to  with  happiness.  If  the  meaning  of  Aristotle  is,  that  happiness 
is  a  good  in  itself,  and  should,  for  its  own  sake,  be  thus  regarded  by  us, 
and  that  it  is  our  duty  to  will,  and  as  far  as  able,  to  promote  the  happiness 
of  all  beings  capable  of  it,  he  would  find  none  to  dispute  his  doctrine.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  meant  that  the  ultimate  reason  for  duty,  not  iu 
some,  or  many,  but  in  all  its  forms,  is  found  in  a  simple  consideration  of 
happiness  as  a  good  in  itself,  many  would  dispute  his  doctrine.  If  the 
question  be  asked,  which  theory,  that  of  Plato  or  Aristotle,  should  be 
adopted,  if  we  must  adopt  one  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other,  as  our 
exclusive  standpoint  from  which  to  determine  questions  of  moral  obliga- 
tions, and  from  which  view  does  duty  become  most  sacred  in  human 
regard,  we  should  unhesitatingly  decide  in  favour  of  the  former  and 
against  the  latter.  If  the  question  be  also  asked,  from  which  standpoint 
is  a  system  of  moral  duty  most  readily  and  safely  determinable,  we 
should  still  agree  with  Plato,  as  against  Aristotle.  If,  as  a  final  inquiry, 
the  question  should  be  asked,  which  theory  shall  be  adopted  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  other,  we  should  unhesitatingly  answer,  neither.  Duty 
in  all  its  forms,  is  explicable  from  neither  standpoint.  There  are,  un- 
deniably, for  example,  two  classes  %f  duties  which  we  owe  to  God — the 
one  class  finding  its  ultimate  reason  in  his  moral  perfections — and  the 
other  in  his  susceptibilities  for  happiness.  The  same  holds  true  of  our 
duties  to  all  other  moral  agents.  Willing  happiness  as  a  good  in  itself  is 
virtue,  but  not  all  virtue.  We  please  God  just  as  fully  when  we  esteem 
and  respect  Him  for  no  other  reason  than  His  moral  perfections,  as  we 
do  when  we  will  His  happiness  from  respect  to  his  susceptibilities. 

A  president  of  one  of  our  leading  colleges,  who  was  himself  the  author 
of  an  important  work  on  Moral  Philosophy,  gave  some  years  since  iu 
one  of  the  religious  papers,  a  very  lucid  statement  of  the  various  conflict- 
ing theories  pertaining  to  the  foundation  of  moral  obligation.  After 
stating  the  one  above  indicated,  his  own  being  different  from  that,  he 
remarked,  *  This  is  the  hypothesis  of  President  Mahan,  and  the  mass  of 
mankind  agree  with  him.'  Had  he  asked  for  the  reason  of  this  agreement, 
he  would  have  found  it  identical  with  that  for  which  the  deductions  of 
Common  sense  differ  from  the  systems  of  philosophers,  the  former  includ- 
ing more  real  facts,  and  consequently  being  more  true  than  the  latter. 
When  a  philosopher  affirms  that  duty,  in  certain  specific  forms,  finds  its 
ultimate  reasons  in  character,  we  yield  our  full  assent  to  his  doctrine. 
When  another  philosopher  affirms  that  happiness  is  good  in  itself,  and 
should  be  willed  for  its  own  sake,  we  assent  as  before.  But  when  each 
claims  for  his  hypothesis  exclusive  validity,  we  dissent  from  both,  and 
the  common-sense  of  the  race  is,  of  course,  with  us.     So  will  it  be  in 


ARISTOTLE.  271 


all  cases  in  which  systems  are  based  upon  a  partial  induction  of  real 
facts. 

Doctrine  of  Reminiscence. 
All  thinkers  now  agree  with  Aristotle,  in  rejectinj?  Plato's  doctrine  of 
pre-existence,  and  especially  in  repudiating  his  hypothesis  of  Reminisceuce. 
No  facts  of  consciousness  exist  the  explanation  of  which  demands  tho 
admission  of  any  such  hypothesis.  When  we  take  into  the  account  the 
entire  facts  of  perception,  together  with  the  realities  necessarily  implied 
by  said  facts,  the  origin  and  genesis  of  all  knowledge,  in  all  its  actiml 
forms,  receives  a  full  and  ready  explanation.  Had  Aristotle  and  Plato 
both  recognized  the  existence  and  character  of  contingent  and  necessary 
forms  of  thought,  together  with  the  manifest  relations  between  the  two, 
neither  of  them  would  have  erred  in  Philosophy  as  he  has  done. 

The  Universe  as  an  External  Existence^  and  as  Organized  in  Time. 

Plato,  as  we  have  seen,  taught  the  doctrine  of  creation  as  an  event  of 
time.  Aristotle,  on  the  other  hand,  affirmed  the  eternity  of  the  present 
order  of  things.  What  is  very  remarkable  here  is,  the  fact  that  Plato, 
who  was  so  exclusively  A ^rtm  in  his  method  of  philosophizing,  based  his 
deductions  in  this  case  wholly  upon  facts  of  induction,  while  Aristotle, 
who  is  avowedly  inductive  in  all  his  reasonings,  based  his  conclusion 
exclusively  upon  h  priori  grounds.  In  such  a  case,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
the  former  was  right,  and  the  latter  wrong.  The  argument  of  Plato,  we 
have  before  presented.  Aristotle  argues  the  eternity  of  the  universe  from 
the  fundamental  idea  of  God  as  a  necessary  activity.  Hence,  he  draws 
the  following  deductions  from  that  idea  :  '  Not  at  any  time  did  God 
shape  the  orderly  world ;  He  conditions  and  determines  the  order  of  the 
world  eternally,  in  that  He  exists  as  the  most  perfect  being,  and  all 
things  else,  seek  to  become  like  Him.  The  world  as  an  articulate 
whole  has  always  existed,  and  will  never  perish.'  In  creation,  also,  God 
is  not  active,  but  passive,  and  'acts  by  virtue  of  attraction  which 
the  loved  exerts  upon  the  loving.'  AVe  have  here  another  form  of 
*  absolute  truth '  obtained  through  A  priori  insight,  a  form  irreconcilably 
contradictory  to  all  other  revelations  ever  obtained  by  the  same  infallible 
form  of  vision. 

Such  were  the  essential  issues  between  Plato  and  Aristotle — issues 
from  which  the  distinct  and  opposite  systems  of  each  took  its  specific 
form.  We  will  now  turn  our  attention  to  the  diverse  assumed  forms  of 
systematized  truth  which  Aristotle  based  upon  the  principles  above 
elucidated. 

Aristotle's  Logic 

Of  all  his  productions,  the  Logic  is  the  most  complete  in  itself,  and  has 
had  the  widest  and  most  controlling  influence.     For  about  two  thousand 


z;2  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

years  the  logical  thought  of  Christendom  has  taken  form  from  this  single 
production.  Yet  when  contemplated  in  the  light  of  the  laws  of  thought 
in  general,  or  of  reasoning  in  its  universal  forms,  none  of  the  productions 
of  this  author  were  less  perfect  or  complete.  In  this  work  we  have  the 
logic  of  classification  and  generalization  simply,  and  not  of  reasoning  in 
its  universal  forms.  His  celebrated  dictum,  when  scientifically  examined, 
is  found  to  be  applicable  to  but  a  single  class  of  propositions — those  in 
which  the  subject  and  predicate  are  related  as  inferior  and  superior  con- 
ceptions, as  in  the  judgment,  All  men  are  mortal.  To  such  judgments 
the  dictum,  *  Whatever  may  be  affirmed  or  denied  of  any  term  distributed, 
may,  in  a  similar  manner,  be  predicated  of  every  individual  who  comes 
under  that  term ;'  to  all  such  judgments,  we  say,  this  dictum  is  applicable. 
In  c«nverting  universal  affirmative  judgment  of  this  class,  we  have  to 
change  the  quantity  of  the  judgment  from  a  universal  to  a  particular — 
Some  mortal  beings  are  men.  Hence  the  universal  law  of  distribution,  as 
given  in  all  Aristotelean  Logics  of  all  ages,  that  '  All  negative  and  no 
affirmative  judgments  distribute  the  predicate.'  Now,  with  the  single 
exception  of  that  one  class  of  judgments,  in  which  the  predicate  represents 
a  superior  and  the  subject  an  inferior  conception,  all  universal  affirmative 
judgments  distribute  both  terms.  We  may  safely  challenge  the  world  to 
find  an  exception  to  this  statement.  Is  not  the  converse,  as  well  as  the 
fxposita,  in  the  judgment,  Things  equal  to  the  same  thing  are  equal  to 
one  another — a  universal  proposition  ?  The  same,  undeniably,  holds  true 
of  all  universal  affirmative  judgments  throughout  the  entire  range  of 
mathematics,  and  in  respect  to  all  such  judgments  but  those  of  the  single 
class  above  designated.  In  the  single  sphere  of  classification  into  species 
and  genera,  Aristotle's  principle  of  distribution  and  conversion  holds  true. 
Outside  of  this  sphere,  where  a  vast  majority  of  all  our  judgments  are 
i'oand,  his  principle  utterly  misleads  the  student. 

The  same  holds  true  of  his  laws  of  the  Syllogism.  In  the  first  figure, 
we  are  informed,  affirmative  and  negative  conclusions,  in  all  their  forms, 
may  be  obtained,  while  in  the  second  figure  we  can  obtain  only  negative, 
:ind  in  the  third  only  particular  conclusions.  This  law  has  validity  but 
ill  the  single  sphere  of  classification,  when  the  conceptions,  in  each 
judgment,  stand  related  as  inferior  and  superior  conceptions,  that  is,  as 
ispecies  and  genera.  In  all  other  cases  we  obtain  the  same  kind  of  con- 
clusions, affirmative  and  negative,  universal  and  particular,  in  all  the 
figures  in  common.  We  will  give  a  single  example  in  which  we  obtain 
affirmative  conclusions  of  the  same  class  in  each  of  the  figures. 

L  11.  III.    . 


M=X, 

X  =  M, 

M  =  X, 

Z  =  M, 

Z  =  M, 

M  =  Z, 

Z=:X. 

Z=X. 

z=x. 

ARISTOTLE.  273 


If  the  terms  in  these  syllogisms  represented  inferior  and  superior  con- 
ceptions, the  conclusion  would  be  valid  but  in  the  first  figure.  Eepre- 
senting,  as  they  do,  covipared  quantities,  the  conclusions  have  the  same 
validity  in  all  the  figures.  In  the  single  sphere  of  classification,  the 
Logic  of  Aristotle  is  '  perfect  and  complete,  wanting  nothing.'  As  a 
science  of  the  Laws  of  Thought,  and  of  reasoniug  in  all  its  forms,  it  has 
misled  Christendom  for  nearly  twenty  centuries. 

The  reason  is  obvious.  *  Eeal  existences,'  according  to  Aristotle,  and 
according  to  truth,  are  exclusively  individual  forms  of  being.  General 
conceptions,  therefore,  can  represent  nothing  but  the  qualities  common 
to  all  the  individuals  Avhich  such  conceptions  represent.  The  question 
which  here  arises  is  this.  How  do  we  advance  from  the  individual  to 
the  general  1  Plato's  answer  to  this  question  has  already  been  given. 
In  a  former  state,  he  aflBrmed,  the  general,  as  a  distinct  form  of  being, 
was  an  object  of  mental  vision ;  and  in  the  present  state,  there  is  a 
reminiscence  of  those  general  forms  which  were  there  perceived.  Aristotle 
denied  wholly  the  reality  of  such  separate  forms  of  existence,  together 
with  the  whole  doctrine  of  reminiscence.  To  obtain  the  general  at  all, 
then,' it  must  be  deduced  by  induction  from  particulars.  Induction  he 
designates  as  the  pathway  from  the  particulars  to  generals,  and  denominates 
this  process  as  an  art.  *  Art  commences,'  he  says,  *  when,  from  a  great 
number  of  experiences,  one  general  conception  is  formed  which  will 
embrace  all  similar  cases.'  *  Thus,'  he  adds,  *  if  you  know  that  a  certain 
remedy  has  cured  Collias  of  a  certain  disease,  and  that  the  same  remedy 
has  produced  the  same  effect  on  Socrates  and  on  several  other  persons, 
that  is  Experience ;  but  to  know  that  a  certain  remedy  will  cure  all 
persons  attacked  with  that  disease  is  Art ;  for  Experience  is  the  know- 
ledge of  individual  things  ;  Art  is  that  of  Universals.' 

So  far  Aristotle  was  unquestionably  correct.  "Wherein,  and,  why  did 
he  err  ?  In  the  assumption,  we  answer,  that  all  universals  are  obtained 
by  means  of  this  form  of  experience,  that  is,  finding  in  many  particulars 
their  common  qualities  or  characteristics,  and  then  combining  said  qualities 
into  general  notions,  and  finally  from  these  deducing  our  general  judg- 
ments ;  as.  All  men  are  mortal,  and,  All  men  are  animals.  Not  one  of  our 
universal  ideas,  such  as  that  of  time,  space,  cause,  substance,  personal 
identity,  the  soul,  God,  duty,  immortality,  and  retribution,  represent 
qualities  common  to  individual  existences,  or  were  combined  from 
qualities  thus  abstracted.  The  elements  constituting  these  ideas  were 
not  given  in  perception,  but  represent  realities  implied  by  what  is  per- 
ceived. We  do  not,  for  example,  find  space  in  body,  which  we  perceive, 
and  do  not  abstract  it  from  body,  but  apprehend  it,  as  a  separate  ex- 
istence whose  reality  is  implied  by  what  we  perceive.  The  same  holds 
true  of  all  our  necessary  ideas.     Nor  were  these  ideas  originated  in  the 

18 


274  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

mind  by  the  induction  of  any  number  of  particular  facts.  The  first  timn 
we  perceived  body  Ave  through  Eeason,  apprehended  space  as  the  phicn 
of  body,  and  as  implied  by  the  same.  If  the  first  facts  of  succession, 
phenomena,  and  events,  did  not  induce,  through  Reason,  the  apprehension 
of  time,  substance,  and  cause,  no  multiplied  perceptions  of  the  same  kind 
could  do  it.  To  obtain  a  general  conception,  a  number  of  particulars 
more  or  less  numerous  must  be  perceived.  To  develop  a  necessary  idc* 
but  a  single  fact  need  be  given.  If  one  single  event  does  not  imply  a 
cause,  an  infinite  number  would  not  do  it.  If  each  phenomenon  does 
not  imply  substance,  all  phenomena  together  do  not  do  it.  If  each  par- 
ticular body  and  fact  of  succession  do  not  imply  space  and  time,  the 
universe  itself,  with  all  events,  does  not  do  it.  In  connection  with  the 
first  fact  given,  Reason  must  apprehend  the  reality  implied  by  the  fact,  or 
it  can  never  apprehend  that  reality. 

At  the  basis  of  all  the  sciences,  also,  we  find  the  axioms  and  postulates 
which,  from  the  perceived  relations  between  their  subjects  and  predicates, 
have  intuitively,  absolutely  universal  and  necessary  certainty,  a  certainty, 
also,  which  can  neither  be  increased  nor  diminished  by  the  induction  of  any 
number  of  particular  facts.  An  individual  with  a  yard  stick  in  his  hand, 
for  example,  is  present  in  a  room  with  a  philosopher,  an  uneducated  man, 
and  a  child  who  has  never  before  witnessed  any  such  event  as  that  which 
we  are  about  to  relate,  but  can  perceive  and  apprehend  the  simple  facts 
of  the  case.  The  individual  holding  the  yard-stick  applies  it  to  a  table 
there,  and  finds  that  they  exactly  agree  in  length.  He  then  takes  his 
company  into  an  adjacent  room,  and  applying  the  yard-stick  to  a  table 
standing  here,  finds  the  same  perfect  correspondence  as  before.  What, 
without  a  word  being  spoken,  will  be  the  inference  of  each  of  these  four 
individuals  from  the  facts  under  consideration  ?  All  will  affirm,  and 
affirm  with  the  same  absoluteness,  the  equality  of  the  two  tables,  as  far 
as  the  quality  of  length  is  concerned.  The  reason  is,  that  every  one 
does  and  must,  in  the  presence  of  such  facts,  though  perceived  for  the 
first  time,  apprehend,  in  the  concrete,  what  the  philosopher  alone  knows 
in  the  abstract  form,  the  principle  which  lies  at  the  basis  of  every  such 
conclusion,  namely,  that  things  which  are  equal  to  the  same  thing  are 
equal  to  one  another.  So  the  first  time  the  idea  of  an  event  enters  the 
mind  of  a  child,  he  knows  as  absolutely  as  the  philosopher  does,  that  it 
occurred  somewhere,  in  some  time,  and  from  some  cause.  Neither  uni- 
versal ideas,  as  those  of  space,  time,  substance,  and  cause,  nor  intuitively 
universal  and  necessary  judgments  were  derived  from  the  observation  of 
many  facts,  but  are,  all  in  common,  given  in  each  particular  fact  by  whi>ch 
their  validity  is  implied. 

Here,  then,  we  have  a  full  explanation  of  the  essential  imperfection  of 
Aristotle's  Logic     Beginning  with  the  idea  of  individuals  as  the  only 


ARISTOTLE.  vjl 


realities,  he  sought  to  deduce  from  what  was  imraaneat  in  them,  all  our 
general  and  universal  conceptions  and  ideas.  When  he  had  thus  found 
the  general,  that  is,  the  generic  conception,  he  assumed,  that  he  had 
found  all  universal  ideas.  From  individual,  specifical,  and  generical  con- 
ceptions, none  but  judgments  whose  subjects  and  predicates  are  consti- 
tuted of  inferior  and  superior  conceptions  can  be  obtained.  With  these, 
consequently,  Aristotle  constructed  his  Logic,  and  gave  us,  of  course,  the 
principles  and  laws  of  classification,  and  not  of  judging  and  reasoning  in 
their  unrversal  forms.  Classification  is  only  preparatory  to  science  proper, 
and  all  the  sciences  are  based,  a?  we  have  seen,  upon  principles,  or  judg- 
ments, fundamentally  unlike  those  obtained  in  the  sphere  of  classification, 
judgments  not  of  mere  experience,  but  having  intuitively,  universal  and 
necessary  validity.  In  judgments  of  this  latter  class,  we  have  the  rela- 
tions intuitively  perceived  to  exist  between  forms  of  perceived  and  implied 
knowledge,  and  hence  we  obtain  intuitive  judgments  which  have  uni- 
versal and  necessary  validity. 

Aristotle,  pressed  by  an  apprehension  of  the  want  of  universality  in  his 
system,  did  attempt  to  remedy  the  defect,  by  setting  forth  two  universal 
principles — that  of  contradiction,  and  excluded  middle.  He  gave  these, 
not  because  they  were  implied  by  his  principle  of  deducting  his  general 
from  particular  conceptions,  but  because  he  did  have  in  his  mind,  what 
all  other  men  have  in  theirs,  ideas  of  Eeason,  and  consequently  could  not 
but  apprehend,  in  some  of  their  forms,  the  necessary  relations  between 
perceived  and  implied  forms  of  knowledge,  and  must  have  apprehended 
some,  at  least,  of  the  basis  principles  of  the  sciences.  The  two  given  by 
Aristotle,  however,  constitute  but  a  small  portion  of  the  axioms  and  pos- 
tulates of  the  various  sciences,  and  these,  as  we  have  said,  he  obtained  in 
contradiction  to  his  avowed  principles  of  deducing  the  universal  from  the 
particular. 

Fundamental  Error  of  Mr.  Mill  in  his  Looia 

The  Logic  of  Mr.  Mill  is,  in  reality,  only  a  new  edition  or  reproduction 
of  that  of  Aristotle — an  attempt  to  restrict  the  science  even  farther  than 
the  latter  did — to  wit,  within  the  sphere  of  mere  classification.  Mr.  Mill 
has,  in  fact  and  form,  endeavoured  to  invalidate  the  principle  of  contra- 
diction, and  the  apprehended  necessary  connection  between  the  subject 
and  predicate  in  a  given  judgment  as  a  test  of  truth.  *  It  must  be 
granted,'  he  says,  *  that  in  every  syllogism,  considered  as  an  argument  to 
prove  the  conclusion,  there  is  a  petitio  principii.  All  inference,'  he  adds, 
'  is  from  particulars  to  particulars  ;  general  propositions  are  merely  registers 
of  such  inferences  already  made  and  short  formula  for  making  more.  The 
major  premise  of  a  syllogism,  consequently,  is  of  this  description  ;  and 
the  conclusion  is  not  an  inference   drawn  from  the  formula,  but  an 

18—2   . 


276  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

inference  drawn  according  to  the  formula — the  real  logical  antecedent,  or 
premise,  being  the  particular  facts  from  which  the  general  proposition 
■VV5S  collected  by  induction.' 

We  are,  then,  to  understand  Mr.  Mill  to  affirm  that  all  his  deductions, 
in  his  extensive  criticisms  on  the  doctrines  of  Sir  William  Hamilton,  are 
simply  and  exclusively  begged,  and  have  no  other  basis  than  mere 
sophistry.  We  must  also  draw  the  same  conclusion,  in  regard  to  his 
doctrine,  that  'all  inference  is  from  particulars  to  particulars,'  and  affirm 
that  what  we  have  here  is  only  another  flagrant  example  of  petitio  pi'incijni 
— *  a  short  formula  for  making  more '  baseless  deductions  of  the  same 
kind.  We  breathe  quite  freely  when  we  take  up  a  work  of  formidable 
dimensions,  and  which  seems  to  lead  only  in  the  direction  of  fundamental 
error,  to  know  that  in  the  judgment  of  the  author  himself,  in  every 
inference  deduced  in  it,  '  there  is  a  petitio  principii,'  one  of  the  most 
vicious  forms  of  sophistry  known  to  the  science  of  Logic. 

In  the  interests  of  a  certain  hypothesis,  pertaining  to  universal  being 
and  its  laws,  Mr.  Mill  has  endeavoured  to  reduce  all  the  self-evident, 
universal,  and  necessary  principles  which  lie  at  the  basis  of  all  the  scieuces 
in  common  to  mere  general  contingent  judgments  obtained  by  abstracting 
the  elements  common  to  certain  particular  facts  in  accordance  with  the 
example  pertaining  to  medicine  given  by  Aristotle.  We  believe,  for 
example,  that  things  equal  to  the  same  things  are  equal  to  one  another, 
not  because  we  perceive  any  necessary  connection  between  the  subject 
and  predicate  in  such  propositions,  but  because  that,  in  many  particular 
instances,  we  have  first  compared  a  given  object — a  yard  stick,  for  example, 
with  two  others,  and  finding  it  equal  to  each,  we  have  then  brought  the 
objects  (tables  in  this  case)  together  and  found  them  to  be  equal  to  one 
another.  We  repeat  such  experiments  for  a  given  number  of  times,  and 
always  with  the  same  result.  We  register  these  results  in  our  thoughts 
as  'short  formulas  for  making  more,'  that  is,  to  guide  us  in  judging  in 
regard  to  what  may  be  true  in  other  cases.  If  we  reason  from  the 
formula,  things  equal  to  the  same  things  are  equal  to  one  another,  as  a 
valid  principle  in  science,  we  reason  falsely,  involving  ourselves  in  the 
vicious  sophistry  of  petitio  princijni,  or  begging  the  question.  So  of  all 
the  axioms  and  postulates  in  all  the  sciences.  As  convenient  formulas, 
having  no  other  basis  than  connections  which  we  have  found  to  exist  in 
particular  cases  of  observation,  they  have  their  use.  When  regarded  as 
valid  principles  in  science,  they  are  utterly  fallacious,  and  deflect  the 
mind  from  the  track  of  truth.  Now  Mr.  Mill,  and  all  the  race  who  know 
anything  at  all,  can  but  know  that  he  lias  here  given  an  utterly  false 
exposition  of  the  necessary  procedures  of  the  Intelligence.  Take,  as  an 
example,  the  case  which  we  stated,  and  let  it  be  presented  in  logical 
form.     Things  equal  to  the  game  thing  are  equal  to  one  another.     The 


ARISTOTLE.  277 


two  tables  designated  are  each  in  length  equal  to  that  of  the  same  yard- 
stick. Therefore  'these  tables  are,  in  length,  equal  to  one  another. 
Mr.  Mill  and  all  the  universe  of  intelligent  beings  know,  and  cannot  but 
know,  that  every  such  inference  has  absolute  scientific  validity,  that  it  is, 
in  fact  and  form,  *  drawn  from  the  formula,'  and  not  '  according  to  the 
formula.'  The  same  holds  true  of  all  inferences  in  all  valid  sciences. 
They  all  have  their  ultimate  basis  in  self-evident  principles  which  do,  and 
must,  have  universal  and  absolute  validity.  All  such  principles,  we 
repeat  what  we  have  often  said  before,  represent,  not  what  appears  in- 
trinsically in  mere  facts,  but  necessary  relations  intuitively  perceived  to 
exist  between  real  facts  and  realities  implied  by  said  facts. 

The  exigencies  of  Mr.  Mill's  hypothesis  of  being  and  its  laws  require 
us  to  admit  facts  to  be  real,  but  to  afi&rm  that  they  imply  nothing,  and, 
consequently,  that  nothing  but  mere  facts  do  exist.  Now  we  know  not 
only  that  facts  are  real,  but  that  they  do  and  must  imply  the  existence  of 
other  realities  also.  We  know  body,  succession,  events,  and  phenomena 
to  be  real,  and  we  know,  with  the  same  absoluteness,  that  these  verities 
do  and  must  imply  the  reality  of  space,  time,  cause,  and  substance.  As 
a  necessary  consequence  we  know  that  the  principles,  Body  implies  space ; 
Succession,  time ;  Events,  cause ;  Phenomena,  substance  ;  Things  equal 
to  the  same  things  are  equal  to  one  another,  and.  It  is  impossible  for  the 
same  thing  at  the  same  time  to  exist  and  not  exist,  etc.,  have  absolute 
validity  for  truth,  and  do  constitute  a  valid  basis  for  real  scientific  deduc- 
tion. We  know,  also,  that  when  *  inferences  are  drawn  from  such 
formulas,'  we  have  no  petitio  principii. 

Aristotle's  Formula  Pertaining  to  the  Origin,  Source,  and 
Consequent  Elements,  of  all  our  Knowledge. 

Aristotle  is  affirmed  by  many  to  have  furnished  for  all  ages  the  fixed 
formula  of  the  doctrine  of  Materialism,  a  formula  which  we  have  never 
found  but  in  its  I^atin  form,  to  wit,  *  Nihil  in  intellectu  non  prior  in 
sensu.*  When  combating  the  doctrine  of  Plato,  that  all  knowledge 
having  absolute  validity  is  through  Reason,  Aristotle  might  very 
naturally  have  attirmed  the  opposite  doctrine,  that  all  real  knowledge 
is  through  Sensatioi^  and  that  the  elements  of  all  ideas  in  the  Intelli- 
gence were  originally  derived  from  this  one  source.  If  he  did  give 
utterance  to  such  a  formula,  it  is  undeniable  that  he  held  it  only  as  a 
general,  and  not  universal  truth  ;  for  he  himself  admitted  the  distinction 
between  contingent  and  necessary  ideas,  and  affirmed  the  reality  of  forma 
of  being  which  are  not  objects  of  sense-perception,  the  soul  and  God,  frr 
example.  Whether  he  was,  or  was  not,  the  author  of  this  formula,  we  shill 
not  undertake  to  decide.  As  we  here  meet  with  it  for  the  first  time, 
and  as  it  has  constituted,  in  fact  and  form,  the  basis  and  principh  of 


27S  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

^raterialisin  in  all  subsequent  ages,  we  shall  give  it  a  fundamental 
examination. 

The  argument  of  Materialism  based  upon  this  formula,  as  set  forth  by 
Condilac,  and  all  other  Materialists,  is  this.  The  origin  and  source  of  all 
our  knowledge  is  Sensation.  The  object  and  cause  of  Sensation  must  be 
matter.  Matter,  therefore,  and  it  only,  really  exists,  No  philosopher 
ever  set  forth  the  Materialistic  argument  in  any  other  essential,  or  stronger 
form  than  this.  Let  us  give  this  argument  a  full  and  careful  examina- 
tion. 

We  grant  the  reality  of  Sensation,  and  of  its  object  and  cause  as 
having  real  extension  and  form,  and,  consequently,  the  real  existence  of 
matter.  Here,  however,  the  argument,  in  this  direction,  comes  to  a  final 
determination.  Matter  is  real.  This  is  undeniable,  and  this  is  all  the 
deduction  that  the  fact  of  Sensation  does  or  can  yield  us.  We  have,  as 
yet,  found  no  basis  whatever  for  the  deduction,  that  nothing  but  matter 
exists,  and  here  we  meet  with  the  infinita  logical  leap  of  Materialism. 
Matter  does  exist;  therefore,  nothing  but  matter  has  being.  Can  any 
philosopher  show  us  the  connection  between  premise  and  conclusion  in 
this  case  ]  John  does  exist.  Therefore,  Thomas  does  not  exist.  The 
Materialist  is  welcome  to  hang  his  system  upon  such  Logic  as  this,  and 
he  can  find  nothing  else  upon  which  to  hang  his  deduction. 

But  the  Materialist  replies,  we  know  that  matter  does  exist,  and  do  not 
know  that  anything  else  is  reaL  We  must,  therefore,  exclude  from  our 
theory  of  existence,  all  but  the  known,  and,  therefore,  assume  matter  to 
be  the  only  reality.  Let  us  consider  the  argument  from  this  standpoint. 
Sensation  exists — that  is  granted  on  all  sides.  Kow,  Sensation  implies  a 
subject,  as  well  as  object  and  cause,  and  the  nature  of  this  subject  must  be 
as  that  of  its  phenomenon.  Sensation.  Sensation,  as  a  perception,  or 
sensitive  state,  has,  undeniably,  neither  length,  breadth,  weight,  nor 
colour,  and  does  not  permit  us  to  affirm  either  of  its  subject.  Feeling 
has  no  likene.'^s  whatever  to  extension  and  form.  We  have  before  us, 
then,  two  distinct  and  separate  entities — the  subject  of  Sensation — and 
its  objt'ct  and  cause.  The  one  entity  is  as  undeniably  real  as  the  other, 
and  between  the  two,  not  a  single  common  quality  can  be  found.  Science, 
therefore,  absolutely  prohibits  our  attributing  to  them  a  common  nature. 

The  argument,  however,  does  not  stop  here.  Sensation  not  only  exists, 
but  exists  as  a  knoivn  fact.  Were  it  not  so,  we  could  not  reason  about 
sensation  as  a  fact,  or  about  a  subject,  or  its  object  and  cause.  Sensation, 
and  the  knowledge  of  the  same,  undeniably  pertain  to  the  one  and  the 
same  subject,  and  imply  in  that  subject  a  power  of  valid  self-knowledge 
on  the  one  hand,  and  a  susceptibility  of  feeling,  on  the  other.  Thus,  at 
a  still  greater,  and  more  unapproachable  remove  from  each  other,  do  the 
subject  of  Sensation  and  its  object  and  cause  appear. 


ARISTOTLE.  279 


But  this  is  uot  all.  As  this  knowing  suhjdct  reflects  upon  the  self  and 
the  uot-self,  new  forms  of  thought  appear  upon  the  theatre  of  conscious- 
ness, and  these  thoughts  induce  new  feelings  unlike  Sensation.  Thus, 
there  is  revealed  in  this  subject  new  capacities  for  knowleiige,  and  a 
great  deep  of  emotive  sensibilities  in  its  inner  being.  In  the  midst  of 
these  new  thoughts  and  emotions,  other  and  still  more  mysterious  pheno- 
mena present  themselves — those  of  free  activity  j  and  mind,  at  length, 
stands  revealed  to  itself  as  a  self-conscious  personality  endowed  with  the 
powers  of  thought,  feeling,  and  voluntary  determination,  a  personality  exist- 
ing, uot  only  amid  material  form'*,  but  other  verities  intiuite  and  eternal. 
Now,  these  phenomena  of  thouylit,  emotion,  and  free-detormination,  are 
just  as  real  as  Sensation  itself,  and  the  powers  which  they  imply  are  just 
as  real  as  are  the  object  and  cause  of  Sensation.  When  we  compare  the 
phenomena  of  the  object  and  cause  of  Sensation  with  those  of  its  subject, 
we  find  nothing  whatever  in  common  between  them,  nothing  by  which 
we  can  identify  them  as  having  a  common  nature,  but  everything  to  distin- 
guish and  separate  them  the  one  from  the  other.  "We  must  fundamentally 
violate  all  the  known  and  conceivable  laws  of  scientific  induction  and 
deduction,  before  we  can  identify  mind  and  matter.  That  is,  undeniably,  a 
one-eyed  Philosophy,  and  a  blear-eyed  Philosophy  at  that,  which,  in  the 
presence  of  Sensation,  inquires  only  for  its  object  and  cause,  and  having 
found  that,  affirms  dead  matter  to  be  the  only  reality.  For  the  same 
reason,  that,  also,  is  a  one-eyed  and  a  blear-eyed  Philosophy,  which  in  the 
presence  of  the  same  phenomenon.  Sensation,  looks  only  in  the  direction 
of  the  subject,  and  finding  that  to  be  spiritual,  affirms  that  nothing  is 
real  but  mind,  ot  its  operation. 

Aristotle's  Ethics. 
In  the  department  of  Ethics  the  world  owes  very  little  to  Aristotle. 
When  all  forms  of  activity  are  judged  of  from  the  single  standpoint  of 
their  perceived  adaptation  to  promote  the  most  perfect  happiness,  we 
need  the  power  of  omniscience  to  determine  specifically  for  ourselves  what 
■we  ought  to  be  and  what  we  ought  to  do.  When,  therefore,  he  affirms 
that  moral  virtue  consists  *  in  a  perfect  practical  activity  in  a  perfect  life,' 
we  are,  in  fact,  no  more  morally  instructed  than  we  were  before.  Equally 
in  the  dark  are  we,  as  far  as  all  morally  practical  purposes  are  concerned, 
■when  he  tells  us  that  the  g*  >d  'is  the  end  towards  which  nature  tends.* 
Moral  virtue,  according  to  Socrates  and  Plato,  is  a  science,  reveuliug  a 
standard  of  duty  and  rules  for  moral  conduct  which  can  be  understood 
and  defined.  Moral  virtue  with  Aristotle  is  an  art,  'the  habit  of 
deliberately  choosing,  existing  as  a  mean  which  refers  to  us,  and  is 
defined  by  Reason,  and,  as  a  prudent  man  would  define  it,  is  a  mean 
between  two  evils,  the  one  consisting  in  excess,  the  other  in  defect ;  and 


28o  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

further,  it  is  a  mean  in  that  one  of  these  falls  short  of,  and  the  other 
exceeds,  what  is  right  both  in  passion  and  actions ;  and  that  virtue  bi)th 
finds  and  chooses  the  mean.'  It  is  an  interesting  fact,  and  one  to  be 
deeply  pondered,  that  those  who  teach  that  actions  are  right  and  wrong 
in  themselves,  and  that  duty  is  to  be  respected  for  its  own  sake,  give  ns 
more  intelligible,  safer,  and  more  perfect  rules  of  moral  character  and 
conduct  than  those  who  contemplate  the  subject  from  the  Aristotelian 
standpoint.  While  we  difter  totally  from  Kant  in  the  sphere  of 
Philosophy,  we  are  compelled  to  regard  him  as  a  far  more  correct  and 
8afer  expounder  of  moral  principles  than  Paley. 

♦The  First  Philosophy,'  or  Metaphysics  op  Aristotlbi 
Aristotle  believed  in  and  tiught  the  doctrine  of  the  real  existence  of 
matter,  the  human  soul,  and  God.  In  these  general  doctrines  he  agreed 
with  Socrates  and  Plato.  Matter,  unorganized,  exists  merely  as  a  passive 
susceptibility  of  being  organized  into  forms.  Of  the  human  soul,  as  an 
Intelligence,  and  capable  of  virtue  and  vice,  he  speaks  with  perfect 
definiteness.  Of  the  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul  he  says  but 
little,  and  teaches  nothing  with  special  definiteness,  though  he  never 
denies  the  doctrine,  but  seems  to  accept  it  as  a  well-known  truth.  In 
respect  to  the  doctrine  of  future  retribution,  we  are  able  to  discover 
nothing  upon  the  subject  in  any  of  his  recorded  teachings.  His  avowed 
perturbation  and  prayer  for  mercy,  however,  as  he  approached  eternity, 
clearly  evince  his  intuitive  belief  in  all  these  doctrines.  So  far,  there- 
fore, he  may  be  safely  affirmed  to  have  substantially  agreed  with  the  two 
individuals  above  named. 

In  theology  Aristotle  in  one  respect  differed  in  the  direction  of  truth 
from  Plato.  The  latter,  as  we  have  seen,  was  an  intense  Polytheist. 
While  Aristotle  does  but  incidentally  recognize  a  plurality  of  Gods,  the 
manifest  tendency  of  his  leading  doctrines  was  the  overthrow  of  Poly- 
theism. It  was  probably  for  this,  as  one  of  the  reasons,  that  he  fled 
from  Athens,  after  having  presided  with  such  wondrous  success  over  the 
Lyceum  for  the  space  of  twelve  years. 

In  his  teachings  pertaining  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Supreme  God, 
Aristotle,  and  that  in  the  direction  of  fundamental  error,  dilfered  not  only 
from  Plato,  but  from  all  other  thinkers  who  believe  in  the  existence  of  a 
material  universe  as  a  creation  of  God.  In  Himself  Plato  held  that  the 
Most  High  is  a  free  activity,  capable  of  self-originated  action.  The 
organization  of  the  universe,  as  an  event  of  time,  was  the  result  of  the 
free  act,  creative  fiat  of  God.  According  to  Aristotle,  God  eternally 
exists  as  infinite,  and  all-perfect,  and  necessary,  inactivity,  *  the  motion- 
less cause  of  motion,'  a  being  absolutely  perfect,  and  happy,  and  yet 
utterly  void  of  moral  attributes.     *A11  moral  virtues,'  he  says,   *are 


ARISTOTLE.  281 


utterly  unworthy  of  being  ascribed  to  God.'  Aristotle  divides  existences 
into  three  classes,  that  which  is  perpetually  moved,  that  which  moves 
and  is  moved,  and  that  which  moves  all  things  and  remains  itself  un- 
moved.' This  unmoved  and  '  motionless  cause  of  motion '  is  God. 
*  God,'  he  says,  *  is  absolutely  spirit,  which  thinks  itself,  and  whose 
thought  is  therefore  the  thought  of  thought.  His  agency  as  the  cause  of 
motion  is  not  active  and  formative,  but  passive,  for  it  remains  itself 
unmoved.' 

Aristotle's  Proof  of  the  Divine  Existence. 

Aristotle  presents  the  argument  for  the  being  of  God  in  what  he 
regards  as  tlie  scientific,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  popular  form  on  the 
other.  To  hira,  in  presenting  the  argument  in  the  first  form,  the  world 
is  indebted  for  such  proof  in  three  distinct  forms,  the  Ontological, 
Cosmological,  and  Teleological  forms,  kinds  of  proof  which  yet  have  place 
in  Theistic  teachings,  as  the  only  grounds  of  valid  proof,  although  Kant 
has  absolutely  demonstrated  them,  each  in  succession  as  possessing  by 
itself  no  scientific  validity.  From  the  nature  of  the  case  there  can  be 
but  one  form  of  valid  proof  in  regard  to  causes,  proximate  or  ultimate. 
"We  must  first  find  a  principle,  or  principles,  which,  of  necessity,  imply 
the  being  of  God  as  the  creator  of  the  universe  provided  the  facts  of 
nature,  material  and  mental,  take  rank  under  said  principle,  or  principles. 
Here  we  have  our  major  premise,  or  premises,  in  this  argument.  It  must 
then  be  demonstrated,  as  the  minor  premise,  that  said  facts  do  come 
under  said  principle  or  principles.  The  Theistic  deduction  then  takes 
rank  as  a  demonstrated  truth  of  science.  In  this  one  form  alone  can  the 
deduction  have  validity  with  logical  thinkers.  As  long  as  the  argument 
is  presented  in  the  Aristotelian  form,  it  will  not  only  fail  to  convince 
sceptical  minds,  but  will  be  regarded  as  resting  upon  a  basis,  the  invalidity 
of  which  has  been  fully  evinced. 

For  the  argument  of  Aristotle  in  the  popular  form,  the  argument  as 
translated  into  our  language,  we  are  indebted  to  the  translator  of 
Ueberweg's  '  History  of  Philosophy ' :  '  Imagine  men  who  have  always 
dwelt  beneath  the  earth  in  good  and  well-illuminated  habitations,  habi- 
tations adorned  with  statues  and  paintings,  and  well-furnished  with  every- 
thing which  is  usually  at  the  command  of  those  who  are  deemed  fortunate. 
Suppose  these  never  to  have  come  up  to  the  surface  of  the  earth,  but  to 
have  gathered  from  an  obscure  legend  that  a  Deity  and  divine  powers 
exist.  If  the  earth  were  once  to  be  opened  for  these  men,  so  that  they 
could  ascend  out  of  their  concealed  abodes  to  regions  inhabited  by  us,  and 
if  they  were  to  step  forth  and  readily  see  before  them  the  earth,  and  the 
sea,  and  skies,  and  perceive  the  movements  of  the  clouds  and  the  violence 
of  the  winds ;  and  if  then  they  were  to  look  up  at  the  sun  and  become 


2S2  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

cognizant  of  its  magnitude  and  of  its  workings,  that  he  is  the  author  uf 
day,  in  that  he  sheds  his  light  over  the  entire  universe ;  and  if  afterwards, 
when  night  had  overshadowed  the  earth,  they  were  to  see  the  whole  sky 
beset  and  adorned  with  stars,  and  should  contemplate  the  changing  light 
of  the  moon  in  its  increase  and  decrease,  the  rising  and  setting  of  all  the 
heavenly  bodies,  and  their  course  to  ali  eternity  invariable  and  unalterable; 
truly,  they  would  then  believe  that  gods  really  exist,  and  that  these  mighty 
works  originate  with  them,' 

In  his  scientific  argument,  Aristotle  refers  only  to  the  one  Supreme 
God.  In  his  popular  argument,  no  doubt  in  accommodation  to  public 
opinion,  he  employed  the  term  God  in  the  plural  form.  The  theology 
of  Aristotle,  as  well  as  his  moral  teachings,  are  strictly  non-religious.  God  is 
represented  as  an  infinite  and  perfect  passivity.  'A  necessary  being,'  and,  by 
virtue  of  such  necessity,  '  the  all-perfect  being,'  who  creates  and  governs  by 
a  necessary  law  of  his  eternal  and  immutable  nature.  Being  all-sufficient 
in  himself,  and  dwelling  eternally  alone  within  the  circle  of  his  own 
*  thought  of  thought,'  he  is  above  all  moral  action,  and  without  moral 
attributes,  and  unmoved  by  human  weal  or  woe.  Even  inferior  gods,  if 
they  exist  at  all,  are  without  moral  attributes.  'What  moral  actions,' 
he  asks,  '  can  we  attribute  to  them  ?'  In  his  Ethics,  consequently,  no 
reference  is  had  to  piety  as  a  moral  virtue.  As  God  has  no  care  of  man, 
man  owes  no  worship  or  service  to  God.  Nor  is  moral  virtue  any  very 
serious  concern  with  Aristotle ;  the  happiness  which  arises  from  it,  he 
tells  us,  *  occupies  the  second  place  in  regard  to  happiness.'  '  Moral 
virtue,'  he  adds,  'even  seems,  in  some  points,  to  be  the  consequence  of 
our  corporeal  nature,  and  in  many  to  be  intimately  connected  with  the 
passions.'  *  Happiness,  in  its  highest  form,  results  from  the  exercise  of 
pure  thought.  In  giving  ourselves  up  to  thought,  we  are  not  only  most 
happy,  but  most  pleasing  to  the  gods,  if,  indeed,  they  have  any  regard 
for  man.'  Such  are  the  express  teachings  of  this  philosopher  in  Book  x., 
eh.  8,  of  his  Ethics. 

As  he  consciously  neared  eternity,  however,  his  philosophy  failed  him, 
and  the  acts  of  a  sinful  life,  and  the  facts  of  his  moral  consciousness, 
became  realities  to  his  mind,  and  now  he  prayed.  It  is  no  uncommon 
event  for  philosophers  to  be  godless  in  their  philosophy,  but  like  other 
men  when  the  moral  acts  of  their  lives,  and  tho  tacts  of  their  moral 
consciousness,  force  themselves  upon  their  minds. 

Evidence  of  the  Being,  Perfections,  and  Providence  op  a  Personal 
God,  as  deducible  from  the  Platonic,  Aristotelian,  and  the  only 

OTHER    conceivable   STANDPOINT. 

Plato  held  and  taught  the  doctrine  of  creation  proper,  that  is,  the 
organization  of  the  universe  as  an  event  of  time.     Aristotle,  on  the  other 


ARISTOTLE.  283 

baud,  affirmed  the  eternity  of  the  preseut  order  of  things.  There  remains 
but  OQe  other  conceivable  hypotliesis,  that  of  an  eternal  succession  of 
dissolutions  and  reorganizations,  the  present  organization  being  the  last 
of  the  infinite  series.  Whichever  of  these  hypotheses  may  be  true,  the 
ultimate  cause  of  the  series  of  past  and  present  events  must,  undeniably, 
be  an  inhering  law  of  nature  itself  or  a  cause  ah  extra — the  agency  of  a 
personal  God — there  being  no  third  conceivable  hypothesis  of  ultiiiiiite 
causation.  We  propose  to  present  the  evidence  of  the  being  of  God, 
first,  from  a  general  view  of  the  facts  of  nature,  without  reference  to  the 
question  which  of  the  three  hypothesis  above  designated  is  true,  and 
second,  as  deducible  from  each  of  these  hypotheses 

Argument  in  the  most  general  form. 
Contemplating   the    subject    in    its    most    general   aspects,    without 
reference  to  the  question  which  of  the  three  hypotheses  above  designated 
is  true,  the   following  considerations  present   themselves  as   having-  a 
fundamental  bearing  upon  our  present  inquiries. 

1.  The  doctrine  of  ultimate  causation,  through  inhering,  or  Natural, 
Law,  can  on  no  conditions,  actual  or  conceivable,  be  proven  true.  No 
one  will  claim  for  this  doctrine  self-evident  validity,  nor  can  a  single  fact 
be  adduced  which  is  not  just  as  obviously  and  undeniably  explicable 
upon  the  Theistic  hypothesis  as  upon  the  one  under  consideration.  If  we 
cannot  prove  '  that  the  worlds  were  made  by  the  Word  of  God,'  no  man 
can  prove  that  they  were  originated  by  Natural  Law.  If  order  or  facts 
of  any  kind  are  explicable  by  Natural  Law,  they  are,  undeniably,  equally 
explicable  on  the  opposite  hypothesis. 

2.  For  the  reasons  already  stated,  no  form  or  degree  of  positive  evidence 
can  be  adduced  in  favour  of  the  doctrine  of  ultimate  causation  by  Natural 
Law.  All  facts  of  every  kind  being  just  as  explicable  on  the  opposite 
hypothesis  as  upon  this,  the  possibility  of  any  positive  evidence  being 
adduced  in  favour  of  the  latter  hypothesis,  as  against  the  other,  is 
absolutely  excluded. 

3.  Nor  can  there  be  shown  to  exist  any  degree  of  antecedent  prohability 
in  favour  of  this  doctrine  of  Natural  Law  as  opposed  to  the  oppo-site 
hypothesis.  To  claim  nothing  more  in  this  connection,  it  is  just  as 
antecedently  probable  that  universal  order  is  the  result  of  intelligent 
foresight  and  design,  as  of  blind  and  unconscious  Natural  Law. 

4.  The  deduction  is  undeniable  that  the  hypothesis  of  Natural  Law, 
when  held  or  asserted  as  a  positive  truth,  has  no  other  basis  than  mere 
naked  assumption  not  self-evidently  true,  which  is  wholly  unsusceptible 
of  being  proved  true,  and  in  favour  of  which  no  form  or  degree  of 
positive  evidence  or  antecedent  probability  can  be  adduced,  an  assump- 
tion which  cannot  be  held  as  such  a  truth  without  a  palpable  violation  u£ 


284  ^  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  immutable  demands  of  science.  In  no  other  respect  is  the  demand 
of  science  more  absolute  than  it  is  in  requiring  for  all  positive  opinions  a 
strictly  positive  basis.  We  have  here  demonstrative  evidence  that  Anti- 
theism,  in  none  of  its  forms,  has  any  other  basis  than  lawless  assump- 
tion. 

5.  In  favour  of  the  Theistic  Hypothesis,  on  the  other  hand,  we  have, 
first  of  all,  the  intuitive  convictions  of  the  race.  The  truth  of  this  state- 
ment has  been  fully  evinced  in  our  former  discussions.  Here  is  positive 
evidence  which  demands  the  implicit  faith  of  the  race.  Anti-theism 
impeached  this  intuitive  conviction  or  faith  of  the  race,  and  must  verify 
that  impeachment  by  absolute  proof,  which,  as  we  have  shown,  is  im- 
possible, or  itself  stand  convicted  of  holding  positive  opinion  without 
evidence,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  fundamental  error  on  the  other. 

6.  This  universal  and  intuitive  faith  is  also  verified  by  proof  of  the 
most  absolute  kind.  The  formula  of  La  Place  cannot  be  disproved  or 
reasonably  doubted,  that  in  view  of  the  nature  of  the  order  which 
pervades  the  universe,  the  probability  stands  a»  infinity  to  unity  in 
favour  of  the  hypothesis  of  Theism  as  opposed  to  that  of  Natural  Law. 
This  order  accords  throughout  with  laws  and  principles  of  Pure  Intelli- 
gence. The  order  in  nature,  also,  is  throughout  a  wisely*  adjusted 
system  of  means  and  ends,  the  wants  of  rational  mind  being  the  end,  and 
all  other  adjustments  sustainiug  the  visible  relation  of  a  means.  Nor  can 
anyone  wisely  study  the  mechanism  of  the  universe  without  perceiving 
that  one  of  the  chief  ends  of  universal  order  is  the  scientific  education  of 
rational  mind.  When,  also,  we  profoundly  study  the  principles,  laws, 
and  instinctive  wants  of  the  higher  departments  of  our  rational  and  moral 
nature,  it  becomes  demonstrably  evident  that  rational  mind  is  immutably 
constituted  as  the  fixed  correlate  to  one  exclusive  idea  of  Ultimate  Causa- 
tion, that  of  an  infinite  and  perfect  personal  God.  When  we  worship, 
pray  to,  seek  the  fellowship  of,  and  order  all  our  activity  with  reference 
to,  the  will  of  such  a  Being,  we  act  in  as  absolute  conscious  harmony  with 
the  immutable  demands  of  our  rational,  moral,  and  spiritual  nature,  just 
as  we  accord  with  the  laws  of  our  physical  nature  in  seeking  food  and 
raiment.  Throughout  all  departments  of  nature,  also,  this  principle  holds 
universally,  that  for  every  want  of  sentient  existence  there  is  a  corre- 
sponding provision,  and  for  every  essential  adaptation  a  corresponding 
sphere  of  activity.  Now,  rational  mind  is  no  more  the  fixed  correlate  to 
the  social  principle  than  it  is  to  the  ideas  of  God,  duty,  immortality,  and 
retribution.  Universal  nature,  the  universe,  and  rational  mind  especially, 
are  a  lie,  or  order — the  order  visible  before  us — is  the  result  of  the  creative 
and  controlling  agency  of  a  personal  God.  Such  is  the  necessary  deduc- 
tion from  the  most  general  standpoint  from  which  the  subject  before  us 
may   be  contemplated.     We  have  before  us  two  utterly   incompatible 


ARISTOTLE.  285 

hypotheses,  one  of  which  imist  be  true,  and  the  other  false.  In  favour 
of  one,  no  form  or  degree  of  proof,  positive  evidence,  or  antecedent  pro- 
bability, can  be  adduced.  In  favour  of  the  other,  we  have  all  the  forms 
of  proof,  positive  evidence,  and  antecedent  and  deductive  probability 
which  any  question  of  causation,  proximate  or  ultimate,  admits  of. 

The  Argument  as  Deducible  from  the  Platonic  Stavdpoint. 

The  doctrine  of  Plato,  as  we  have  before  stated,  is  that  of  creation  as 
an  event  occurring  in  time.  If  we  grant  the  validity  of  this  hypothesis,  the 
Theistic  argument  assumes  a  character  in  the  strictest  sense  demonstrative. 
Ultimate  causation  by  Natural  Law,  implies,  of  necessity,  either  the 
eternity  of  the  present  order  of  things,  or  an  eternal  succession  of  organi- 
zations and  dissolutions.  A  cause  acting  from  necessity,  must  act  as  soon 
as  the  conditions  of  its  activity  are  fulfilled.  The  conditions  of  ultimate 
causation  must  have  been  fulfilled  from  eternity,  or  that  which  fulfilled 
these  conditions,  and  not  the  cause  referred  to,  would  be  ultimate.  A 
necessary  cause,  with  the  conditions  of  its  activity  fulfilled  from  eternity, 
must  have  acted  from  eternity.  Creation  through  Natural  Law,  and  such 
creation  as  an  event  of  time,  is  inconceivable  and  impossible.  In  other 
words,  creation  as  an  event  of  time,  implies,  as  its  ultimate  cause,  a  free, 
self-conscious  Intelligenca  No  deduction  can  have  more  demonstrative 
certainty  than  this. 

Such  is  the  obvious  character  of  the  Theistic  argument  as  deduced  from 
the  Platonic  standpoint.  If  we  should  inquire  for  the  validity  of  the 
doctrine  of  creation  as  an  event  of  time,  we  should  find  that  doctrine 
verified  by  evidence  of  the  most  conclusive  character.  Not  a  solitary 
fact  of  nature  can  be  adduced  in  disproof  of  this  doctrine,  or  which 
renders  its  validity  doubtful.  The  validity  of  that  doctrine,  ou  the  other 
hand,  is  affirmed  by  the  intuitive  convictions  of  the  race,  and  by  all  the 
known  facts  and  valid  deductions  of  all  the  sciences  bearing  upon  the 
subject.  The  statement  of  Locke  that  *  we  have  demonstrative  proof  of 
the  being  of  God,'  is  capable  of  the  fullest  possible  verification. 

Argument  from  the  Aristotelian  Standpoint. 
The  strict  eternity  of  the  present  order  of  things  was,  as  is  well  known, 
the  fixed  doctrine  of  Aristotle.  Yet  he  also  maintained  that  God  is  the 
eternal  Author  of  this  order  which,  as  he  aflirmed,  had  no  begin- 
ning, and  will  have  no  end.  If  we  grant  the  validity  of  this  hypothesis, 
DO  positive  basis,  as  we  have  shown  above,  is  thereby  obtained  for  the 
doctrine  of  ultimate  causation  by  Natural  Law.  For  aught  that  appears 
in  the  facts,  an  eternal  order  may  be  the  result  of  the  agency  of  a  personal 
God,  as  well  as  of  any  law,  inhering,  and  acting  potentially,  in  nature. 
In  favour  of  the  latter,  and  against  the  former  hypothesis,  not  the  re- 


286  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

motest  degree  of  valid  proof,  positive  evidence,  or  even  of  antecedent 
probability,  can  by  any  possibility  be  adduced.  In  favour  of  the  former 
hypothesis,  on  the  other  hand,  vfQ  have  all  the  positive  evidence  deducible 
from  the  intuitive  convictions  of  the  Universal  Intelligence,  the  peculiar 
and  special  nature  of  the  order  to  be  accounted  for,  and  from  all  the 
higher  and  most  fundamental  facts  of  the  universe,  the  laws,  principles, 
and  fixed  adaptations  of  the  rational,  moral,  and  spiritual  nature  of 
universal  mind.  In  the  presence  of  such  evidence,  no  evidence  at  all,  in 
any  form,  existing  on  the  opposite  side,  the  best  that  can  be  said  of 
Anti-Theism,  in  any  of  its  forms  is,  that  it  presents  a  palpable  example  of 
science  run"  mad. 

When  v?e  inquire  for  the  evidence  of  the  validity  of  this  hypothesis  of 
the  eternity  of  the  present  order  of  things,  we  find  not  only  no  evidence 
at  all,  in  any  form,  in  its  favour,  but  such  palpable  proof  of  an  opposite 
character,  that  no  respectable  thinkers  of  any  school  now  advocate  said 
hypothesis.  The  universally  admitted  deduction  of  all  the  sciences  bear- 
ing upon  the  subject  is  the  non-eternity  of  the  universe  as  now  constituted. 
So  far,  the  Theistic  argument  has  the  strictest  demonstrative  validity. 

The  Argument  as  Dedvcihle  from  the  only  remaining  Standpoint,  no 
other  Hypothesis  being  Conceivable. 

It  is  undeniable,  either  that  creation  must  have  been  an  event  of  time 
or  that  the  present  order  of  things  must  have  been  eternal,  or  that  the  pro- 
gress of  nature  must  have  been  an  ete^ial  succession  of  organizations  and 
dissolutions,  universal  order  and  absolute  chaos  being  the  two  ultimates 
towards  which  all  things  have  been  eternally  tending.  Under  this  last 
and  only  remaining  hypothesis,  the  Theistic  argument  becomes  even  more 
absolute  in  its  validity,  than  when  deduced  from  the  Aristotelian  stand- 
point. In  both  cases,  the  argument  takes  on  the  same  identical  form  and 
force,  with  this  difference,  that,  in  the  former  case,  the  same  argument  is 
affirmed  and  re-affirmed,  an  infinite  number  of  times.  In  both  cases,  we 
have  the  same  absence  of  all  proof,  positive  evidence,  and  antecedent 
probability,  against  the  Theistic  hypothesis,  and  in  favour  of  that  of 
Natural  Law,  and  the  same  universal  intuitive  convictions  and  adaman- 
tine facts,  material  and  mental,  against  the  latter  hypothesis,  and  in 
favour  of  the  former. 

In  addition  to  all  this,  we  have  the  same  want  of  evidence  on  the  one 
hand,  and,  on  the  other,  the  same  form  of  proof  repeated  in  each  succes- 
sive organization  of  the  universe  from  eternity  to  the  present  time. 
Having  no  facts  to  reason  from  but  those  of  the  present  order  of  things, 
and  having  no  evidence  to  the  contrary,  we  must  suppose  that  each  of 
these  eternally  successive  organizations,  supposing  them  to  have  occurred, 
must,  in  all  essential  particulars,  have  accorded  with  the  present.     Wo 


ARISTOTLE.  2S7 


must,  therefore,  postulate  an  infinite  number  of  universes,  each  in  succes- 
sion originated  from  a  pre-pxisting  chaos — each  organized  in  strict 
accordance  throughout  with  ideas  and  principles  of  pure  science  as  they 
exist  in  self-conscious  Intelligence — each  organized  exclusively  as  a 
system  of  means  and  ends,  the  wants  of  rational  mind  being  the  final 
end,  and  all  else  a  means  to  that  end — each  organized  in  palpable  con- 
formity to  one  idea,  the  intellectual,  moral,  and  spiritual  education  of 
rational  mind — each  peopled  by  an  indeKnite  number  of  rational  beings, 
all  in  common  intuitively  affirming  a  personal  God,  as  the  ultimate  cause 
of  this  order,  and  all,  in  the  higher  intellectual,  moral  and  spiritual 
departments  of  their  nature,  being  immutably  constituted  as  the  exclusive 
correlates  of  the  Theistic  idea  of  ultimate  causation — a  universe,  finally, 
in  which  there  is,  undeniably,  for  every  essential  want  of  sentient  exist- 
ence a  corresponding  provision,  and  for  every  essential  adaptation  of  such 
creatures  a  corresponding  sphere  of  action.  Conceive  of  an  infinite 
number  of  successive  creations  of  this  character,  each  originated  from  a 
pre-existing  chaos,  and  the  Theistic  argument,  with  no  evidence  whatever 
in  opposition  to  its  claims,  attains  to  a  weight  strictly  infinite.  To 
whichever  of  these  three,  the  only  conceivable  standpoints,  Anti-Theism 
turns  itself,  it  is  encountered  with  evidence  absolutely  destructive.  Its 
condition  is  well  represented  by  that  of  'the  man  who  tied  from  a  lion 
and  a  bear  met  him,  who  went  into  the  house  and  leaned  his  hand  upon 
the  wall,  and  a  serpent  bit  him.'  If  we  inquire  for  the  proof  of  the 
validity  of  this  last  hypothesis,  we  find  the  total  absence  of  all  forms 
and  degrees  of  evidence  in  its  favour  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  presence 
of  the  most  absolute  forms  of  disproof  on  the  other.  What  is  there, 
what  can  there  be,  in  flie  idea  of  universal  chaos,  to  justify  the 
assumption  of  its  origination  from  a  previous  state  of  universal  order? 
Universal  order,  and  universal  chaos,  are  two  distinct  opposite  and  incom- 
patible ultimates  which  have,  and  can  have,  no  adaptation  to  produce, 
and  reproduce,  in  eternal  succession,  one  another.  The  hypothesis  under 
consideration  stands  revealed,  as  a  naked  and  lawless  assumption,  which 
is  based  upon  no  evidence  of  any  kind. 

On  the  other  hand,  this  hypothesis  is  encountered  by  forms  of  disproof 
of  the  most  absolute  character.  Nothing  can  be  more  slanderous  upon 
the  infinite  and  eternal  Mind  than  the  idea  that  He  has  been  eternally 
employed  as  an  organizer  and  disorganizer.  The  idea  of  such  successive 
organizations  and  disorganizations  by  Natural  Law,  involves,  undeniably, 
an  infinite  absurdity.  It  implies  that  Nature,  acting  eternally  under  the 
principle  of  necessity,  fundamentally  changes  and  reverses  from  time  to 
time  her  own  necessary  laws.  In  a  state  of  utter  chaos.  Nature,  from 
necessity,  acts  under  the  law  of  universal  order,  and  continues  thus  to 
act  until  order  is  *■  the  first  law '  of  all  things.     Then  she  reverses  this 


288  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

law,  and  acts  under  the  law  of  universal  disorganization,  and  so  on  from 
eternity  to  eternity.  Further,  when  the  worlds  have  been  originated, 
and  brought  into  a  state  adapted  to  sustain  vital  organizations,  Nature 
now,  by  necessary  laws,  acts  wholly  as  an  originator,  producing  from  the 
crude  elements  of  matter  the  needful  organizations.  "When  this  work  of 
origination  has  proceeded  to  a  needful  extent,  she  reverses  this  law,  and 
adopts  that  of  propagation  from  pre-existing  organizations.  Finally, 
when,  through  propagation  under  the  fixed  law  of  natural  and  sexual 
selection,  fishes  have  produced  reptiles,  reptiles  mammals,  monkeys  men, 
she  reverses  this  law  also,  and  adopts,  as  her  immutable  principle,  that  in 
which  vegetables,  fishes,  reptiles,  monkeys,  and  men,  all  vital  organiza- 
tions in  common,  immutably  produce  their  own  kind.  Such,  undeniably, 
are  the  necessary  procedures  of  Nature,  according  to  the  hypothesis  of  an 
eternal  succession  of  creations  and  dissolutions  by  Natural  Law.  There  is 
no  sounding  the  depths  of  credulity  and  absurdity  to  which  mind  de- 
scends in  the  adoption  of  such  an  hypothesis  as  this.  We  oppose  this 
and  the  Aristotelian  hypothesis  simply  because  they  are  false  in  fact,  and 
not  because  they  render  the  doctrine  of  Theism  indefensible.  From 
whatever  standpoint  it  is  argued  that  doctrine  stands  evinced,  as  an 
eternal  verity  *  which  cannot  be  shaken.' 


SECTION  IV. 

THE  EPICUREANS. 

Epicurus  (341 — 270  b.c.),  a  pupil  of  Nausiphanes,  a  Democritean,  after 
having  taught  Philosophy  in  Mitylene  and  Lampsacus,  finally,  when 
about  thirty-five  years  of  age,  founded  in  Athens  a  school  over  which  he 
presided  until  his  death.  Under  his  teaching  Materialism,  and  with  it 
Atheism,  was  so  fully  systematized  and  perfected  in  form  and  develop 
ment,  that  in  subsequent  ages  Epicureanism  became  a  representative  term 
designating  Materialism,  both  in  its  ontological  and  moral  deductions. 
Having  assumed  matter  to  be  the  only  existing  substance,  he  rigidly 
adhered  to  and  systematized  the  deductions  which  necessarily  follow  from 
that  assumption.  He  not  only  repudiated  the  Polytheism  of  his  age,  but 
denied  the  existence  of  a  Supreme  God,  and  all  forms  of  the  supernatural 
in  Nature.  The  term  *  pleasure '  represents  the  entire  morality  of  Epicu- 
reanism, the  only  moral  problem  which  the  system  presented  for  solution 
being  the  single  question.  What  form  of  activity  will  ensure  for  the 
individual  in  this  life  the  greatest  amount  of  sensitive  enjoyment? — in 
other  words,  the  greatest  amount  of  pleasurable  sensations.  In  our 
remarks  upon  the  system  of  Leucippus  and  Democritus,  we  have  anti- 
cipated most  that  need  to  be  said  as  expository  of  that  of  Epicurus. 


THE  EPICUREANS. 


2S9 


We  shall,  therefore,  confine  our  remarks  in  explaining  the  latter  system 
to  a  few  of  its  special  features — the  explanation  of  which  may  conduce 
to  the  end  we  are  seeking,  a  full  understanding  of  the  true  and  proper 
principles  of  philosophic  induction  and  deduction. 

Perceived  and  Implied  Forms  of  Knowledge. 

Epicurus  seems  to  have  been  the  first  ancient  thinker  who  clearly 
apprehended  the  distinction  and  relations  between  perceived  and  implied 
forms  of  knowledge,  and,  in  fact  and  form,  applied  the  principle  in  the 
sphere  of  the  science  of  Ontology.  His  first  principle  was,  that  body 
implies  space.  If  what  we  call  vacuum,  or  space,  did  not  exist,  he  argued, 
*  there  would  be  nothing  in  which  bodies  could  exist  and  move.'  Bodies 
do,  in  fact,  exist  and  move  There  must,  consequently,  be  space.  The 
idea  of  space,  also,  is  always  connected  in  thought,  and  necessarily  so, 
with  the  apprehension  that  it  is,  and  must  be,  infinite.  Body,  which  is 
finite,  does  imply  space,  but  not  infinite  space.  In  its  own  nature,  how- 
ever, space  is,  and  must  be,  infinite,  and  is  necessarily  thus  represented 
in  thought. 

The  second  form  in  which  Epicurus  presented  the  principle  of  the 
necessary  relations  of  perceived  and  implied  knowledge,  is  this — the 
compound  implies  the  simple.  Body,  as  perceived,  is  an  aggregate,  a 
compound.  If  the  simple  was  not  real,  the  aggregate,  or  compound, 
could  not  exist.  The  aggregate,  which  is  perceived,  is  real.  The  simple, 
or  atoms,  which  are  not  perceived,  must  therefore  exist.  Thus  reasoned 
this  acute  thinker,  and  so  far  his  reasoning  has  absolute  validity.  If  he 
had  rigidly  adhered  to  his  own  principle  of  reasoning  from  the  perceived 
to  the  realities  implied  by  what  is  perceived,  he  would  now  stand  before 
the  world,  not  as  the  representative  of  fundamental  error  both  in  morals 
and  Ontology,  but  as  a  central  light  in  the  firmament  of  true  science. 
He  would  have  perceived  not  only  that  body  implied  space,  and  the  com- 
pound the  simple,  but  that  phenomena  imply  substance,  and  perception 
a  subject  as  well  as  an  object ;  and  that  the  phenomena  of  the  subject  and 
object,  being  fundamentally  unlike  one  another,  imply  the  actual  exist- 
ence of  two  distinct  and  dissimilar  substances,  matter  and  spirit.  He 
■would  thus  have  apprehended  as  actually  existing  four  instead  of  two 
realities.  He  would  have  recognized  as  real,  not  merely  atoms  and  space, 
but  spirit  and  matter,  and  time  and  space,  and  the  facts  of  the  universe 
as  necessarily  implying,  as  their  ultimate  cause,  the  agency  of  an  infinite 
and  perfect  personal  God.  With  matter  as  atoms  and  with  space,  how- 
ever, Epicurus  stopped,  and,  consequently,  with  vther  errorists,  built  up 
his  theory  of  existence  and  its  laws. upon  a  partial  induction  of  actual 
facts. 

10 


293  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOrHY. 

Test  of  Valid  Knowledge. 

One  of  the  fundamental  aims  of  Epicurus  was  to  vindicate  for  percep- 
tion an  absolute  validity  for  the  reality  and  character  of  its  object, 
matter.  His  argument  on  this  point  was  based  upon  the  undeniable 
principle  that  the  burden  of  proof  lies  with  those  who  impeach  the 
validity  of  our  knowledge  of  '  things  without  us,'  and  that  this  knowledge 
must  be  held  as  valid  until  its  invalidity  has  been  fully  demonstrated. 
Science  knows  no  sounder  principle  than  this.  The  validity  of  our  know- 
ledge, he  argued,  cannot  be  disproved.  Perception  can  be  proved  false 
but  by  other  perceptions  or  by  Reason.  To  suppose  that  perception  can 
invalidate  itself  is  self-contradictory.  To  suppose  that  this  can  be  done 
by  Reason,  is  to  suppose  that  forms  of  implied  knowledge  can  contradict 
and  invalidate  that  by  which  they  are  implied,  and  from  which  they 
borrow  all  their  authority.  Such,  in  fact  and  form,  is  the  substance  of 
the  reasoning  of  Epicurus  on  this  point.  *  No  perception,'  he  says,  *  can 
be  proved  false  whether  by  other  perceptions  (whose  authority  cannot  be 
greater  than  that  of  the  perception  in  question),  or  by  Reason,  which  is 
simply  an  outgrovvth  of  perceptions.'  We  may  safely  challenge  the  world 
to  produce  sounder  arguments  on  any  subject  than  this.  We  commend 
this  argument  to  the  serious  consideration  of  Mr.  Spencer  and  others  who 
impeach  the  validity  of  Sense-perception.  How,  permit  us  to  ask  these 
gentlemen,  can  you  sustain  your  impeachment  1  Undeniably,  you  cannot 
do  this  through  perception  itself  If  this  facalty  is  *  a  liar  from  the  be- 
ginning,' you  cannot  torture  it  into  a  confession  of  the  fact.  Nor  will  it 
furnish  you  data  for  its  own  conviction.  If  you  appeal  to  consciousness, 
it,  as  wo  have  shown,  will  simply  give  the  facts  of  perception  as  they  are 
in  themselves,  and  then  leave  them  to  speak  for  themselves.  If  you 
apply  to  Reason,  it  will  simply  present  you  with  the  realities  implied  by 
the  facts  of  perception,  and  will  and  can  do  nothing  more.  If  you  turn 
to  the  secondary  faculties,  they  can  and  will  do  nothing  more  noy  less 
than  combine  into  conceptions  and  judgments,  just  as  given,  the  elements 
furnished  by  the  primary  faculties,  and  leave  these  conceptions  and  judg- 
ments to  speak,  also,  for  themselves.  Do  what  you  will,  you  will  find  it 
absolutely  impossible  to  bribe,  even,  any  of  the  intellectual  faculties  to 
give  a  solitary  utterance  against  the  perfect  integrity  and  validity  of 
Sense-perception.  If,  as  a  last  resort,  you  should  affirm,  that  our  concep- 
tions of  material  forms  are  all  self-contradictory,  and  therefore  invalid, 
you  would  be  at  once  confronted  and  contradicted  by  the  most  palpable 
facts.  All  our  conceptions  of  material  objects  pertain,  without  exception, 
to  said  objects,  as  compounds  constituted  of  simplea,  or  .aggregates  con- 
stituted of  atoms.  No  philosopher,  however  *  minute,'  can  discover,  as 
we  have  demonstrated  elsewhere,  even  the  appearance  of  contradiction 


THE  EPICUREANS.  291 


here.  All  the  affirmed  contradictions  which  Zeno  and  Kant,  and  Spencer 
and  others,  profess  to  find,  exist,  as  we  have  also  shown,  in  fictions  of 
their  own  formation,  and  not  at  all  in  our  world-conceptions,  as  they 
actually  exist  in  the  Universal  Intelligence.  To  prove  perception  false  is, 
therefore,  an  absolute  impossibility.  The  deduction,  that  it  is,  or  can  be, 
false,  can  have  place  in  the  human  mind,  but  as  a  sentiment  of  will,  that 
is,  through  *  an  act  of  (assumed)  scientific  scepticism,  to  which  the  mind 
voluntarily  determines  itself,'  and  thus  *  compels  itself  to  treat  as  nothing 
but  a  prejudice,  innate  indeed  and  connatural,  yet  nothing  but  a  pre- 
judice,' *  the  intuitive,  unavoidable  and  irradicable  faith,'  of  the  race 
in  *  the  reality  of  things  without  us.'  Here,  however,  we  meet  with 
mere  assumption,  and  proof  in  no  form.  The  validity  of  the  deduction  is 
absolute  that  the  faculty  of  Sense-perception  cannot  be  proven  false,  or 
shown  to  be  self-evidently  so,  and  that  all  impeachments  of  its  validity 
have,  and  can  have,  no  other  basis  than  mere  lawless  assumptions. 

Epicurus  undeniably  started  upon  the  track  of  truth,  and  demonstrated 
the  fact  that  he  did  so.  Had  he  continued  true  to  his  own  method  of 
induction  and  deduction,  he  would  have  been  of  the  most  renowned  world- 
thinkers  the  race  has  ever  known.  Failing  to  do  this,  his  name  is,  as 
we  have  said,  synonymous  with  error  in  its  worst  form,  and  even  the 
name  of  the  garden  in  which  his  celebrated  school  was  held,  the  garden 
then  called  a  sty,  now  represents  the  filthiest  spot  known  on  earth.  '  A 
lie  that  is  half  a  truth  is  often  the  blackest  of  lies.'  So,  the  most 
*  disastrous  twilight '  known  to  human  thought  is  '  shed  over '  the  mind 
by  those  forms  of  error  in  which  half-truths  are  imposed  upon  the  world 
as  the  sum  and  substance  of  all  that  is  real. 

The  General  Psychology  of  Epicurus. 

Epicurus  clearly  recognized  in  the  human  mind  three  distinct  general 
faculties  :  Intellect — Sensibility — and  Will.  In  respect  to  the  nature  of 
the  faculty  last  named,  his  school  differed  fundamentally  from  all  other 
Materialistic  schools,  ancient  and  modern.  To  the  Will  he  distinctly 
attributed  the  power  of  free,  in  opposition  to  necessitated,  choice  and 
activity,  and  as  definitely  based  moral  obligation  upon  such  power  of 
choice.  '  Virtue,'  he  taught  (we  quote  from  Mr.  Lewes),  '  rests  upon  Free 
Will  and  Reason,  which  are  inseparable ;  since,  without  Free  Will  our 
Reason  would  be  passive,  and  without  Reason  our  Free  Will  would  be 
blind.  Everything,  therefore,  in  numan  actions  which  is  virtuous  or 
vicious  depends  on  man's  knowing  and  willing.  Philosophical  education 
consists  in  accustoming  the  mind  to  judge  accurately,  and  the  Will  to 
choose  manfully.'  The  doctrine  of  Epicurus,  as  expressed  by  himself,  and 
attributed  to  him  by  Cicero  and  Diogenes  Laertius,  is  thus  summarily 
stated  by  Ueberweg :  *  There  is  no  fute  in  the  world.  That  which  depends 

19—2 


292  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

on  us  is  not  subjpct  to  the  influence  of  any  external  power,  and  it  is  our 
power  of  free  self-determination  which  makes  us  proper  suhjects  of  praiso 
and  blame.' 

So  far,  also,  we  find  our  philosopher  moving  upon  the  track  of  truth, 
and  revealing  himself  as  a  very  profound  analyzer  of  the  facts  of  Con- 
sciousness. In  his  doctrine  of  the  nature  of  the  soul,  however,  the 
central  error  of  his  whole  system  makes  its  appearance.  The  soul,  he 
taught,  is  distinct  from  the  body,  but  yet  material,  and  constituted  of  a 
combination  of  atoms,  *  exceedingly  diminutive,  smooth,  and  round,  and 
connected  with  or  diffused  through  the  veins,  viscera,  and  nerves.'  The 
combination  of  such  particles,  he  admits,  is  *  not  adequate  to  generate 
sensible  motions  (sensations),  such  as  evolve  any  thoughts  in  the  mind.' 
A  certain  fourth  nature  or  substance  must,  therefore,  necessarily  be  added 
to  these  that  is  wholly  without  a  name;  'it  is  a  substance,  however,  than 
which  nothing  exists  more  active  or  more  subtle,  nor  is  anything  mere 
essentially  composed  of  small  and  smooth  elementary  particles,  and  it 
is  this  substance  which  first  distributes  sensible  motions  through  the 
members.'  If  our  philosopher  had  been  asked  the  question  how  he  knew 
that  this  *  fourth  nature  or  substance,'  'that  is  wholly  without  a  name,'  is 
material  at  all,  he  would  have  at  once  found  himself  in  the  same  *  paradise 
of  fools '  in  which  all  Materialists  find  themselves  when  confronted  with 
similar  inquiries.  We  must  admit  the  mind  to  be  possessed  of  the  powers 
of  Thought,  Feeling,  and  Free  Will,  or  impeach  the  integrity  and  validity 
of  the  Universal  Consciousness ;  and  no  man  but  a  very  great  philosopher 
can  conceive  and  digest  in  his  own  mind,  and  then  seriously  propound  to 
the  faith  of  mankind,  such  a  monstrous  absurdity  as  is  involved  in  the 
dogma  that  thought,  feeling,  and  Free  Will  can  exist  as  properties  of 
such  a  thing  as  matter.  Why  a  material  aggregate,  constituted  of  'round, 
small,  and  smooth  particles,'  and  it  alone,  must  possess  the  powers  of 
thought,  feeling,  and  Free  Will,  Epicurus  has  failed  to  inform  us,  just 
as  our  modern  Materialists — the  advocates  of  the  New  Philosophy — fail 
to  explain  to  us  how  and  why  matter,  in  any  form,  exercises  all  mental 
functions,  and  how  and  why  the  existence  of  a  monkey  accounts  for  the 
origin  of  man.     ii^othing  but  will-power  can  solve  such  problems 

Epicurean  Doctrine  of  Creatum. 
Two,  and  only  two  realities,  according  to  Epicurus,  naipely,  matter  and 
space,  exist.  With  this  assumption  he  connected  the  doctrine  that  no 
new  form  of  being  can  be  originated,  nor  any  existing  substance  be 
annihilated.  The  first  principle  he  designates  in  two  forms — to  wit, 
'  Nothing  which  once  was  not  can  ever  of  itself  come  into  being,'  and 
'nothing  is  ever  dmWy  generated  from  nothing.'  The  second  principle 
he  thus  announces :  *  The  universal  whole  was  always  such  as  it  now  is, 


THE  EPICUREANS.  293 


and  always  will  be  such,*  The  term  '  universal  whole,'  here  refei-s,  uot 
to  the  universe  as  now  organized,  but  to  the  original  elements  of  which  it 
is  constituted. 

The  primal  state  of  matter  was  a  chaos — an  infinite  number  of  atoms 
diffused  through  inflnite  space.  The  only  qualities  possessed  by  atoms 
are  form,  magnitude,  and  density,  of  which  qualities  each  one  is  possessed 
in  degrees  diverse  from  all  others.  The  world-problem  presented  was 
this.  Matter,  as  a  chaos  of  atoms,  and  infinite  space  being  given,  to 
account  from  such  data  for  the  organization  of  the  universe,  as  we  now 
find  it.  Undeniably,  the  cause  of  this  organization  cannot  be  found  in 
space,  that  being  mere  vacuum,  and  no  cause  in  any  sense.  Nor  can  this 
cause  be  any  power  exterior  to  matter — matter  by  hypothesis  being  the 
only  existing  substance.  From  '  the  faultiness '  which  he  perceived  to 
exist  in  the  universe,  he  affirmed  that  *  it  cannot  be  the  work  of  a  divine 
power.'  The  cause,  then,  of  the  organization  of  the  universe  must  be 
found  in  the  nature  and  relations  of  the  atoms  themselves.  The  following 
is  the  Epicurean  exposition  of  the  great  fact  before  us. 

If  atoms  infinite  in  number  were  diffused  through  infinite  space,  and 
in  a  state  of  rest,  no  one  particle  touching  any  other,  organization  would 
be  impossible.  If  the  contact  of  the  acoms  was  eternal,  the  consequent 
organization  of  the  universe  would  be  from  eternity,  and  not  an  event  of 
time,  as  palpable  facts  affirm  it  to  have  been.  These  atoms  must  have 
been,  from  eternity,  in  a  state  of  motion,  and  their  contact,  one  with 
another,  an  event  of  time.  If  motion  were  from  eternity,  and  the  atoms 
moved  in  converging  lines,  or  the  motion  of  certain  particles  was  more 
rapid  than  others,  and  thus  their  contact,  as  affirmed  by  Democritus  and 
others,  was  occasioned,  such  contact  and  the  consequent  organization 
must  have  been  from  eternity.  Every  such  hypothesis,  therefore,  must 
be  abandoned.  So  reasoned  Epicureans.  How,  then,  can  motion  be 
eternal,  and  the  consequent  organization  be  an  event  of  time  %  The  fol- 
lowing are,  as  we  showed  in  another  connection,  the  Epicurean  solutions 
of  this  problem.  All  atoms,  by  virtue  of  their  own  weight,  had,  from 
eternity,  a  downward  motion,  and  all  moved  with  the  same  rapidity  <tud 
in  parallel  lines.  At  an  unknown  period  of  the  past,  there  was  a 
spontaneous  deflection  of  certain  atoms  from  the  lines  on  which  they  had 
been  moving  from  eternity.  Thus  one  particle  impinged  against  others, 
and  thus  were  produced  '  movements  from  high  to  low,  from  low  to  high, 
and  horizontal  movements  to  and  fro,  in  virtue  of  this  reciprocal  percus- 
sion.' Thus  the  universe  was  organized,  and  finally  peopled,  as  we  now 
find  it 

A  fundamental  difficulty  in  this  exposition  soon  suggested  itself  to 
Grecian  thought.  How  could  atoms,  moving  under  a  necessary  law  of 
motion,  and  having  moved  so  from  eternity,  spontaneously,  and  of  their 


204  ^  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PIJILOSOPIIY. 

own  accord,  change  the  direction  of  that  motion?  To  avoid  this  difficulty, 
a  power  of  free  activity,  vrhich  undeniably  belongs  to  the  human  mind, 
which  was  assumed  to  be  material,  was  attributed  to  all  matter.  The 
deflection,  and  consequent  collision  of  particles  referred  to,  vras  occa- 
sioned by  voluntary  acts  on  the  part  of  certain  atoms.  *  The  system  of 
l^ature,'  says  Lucretius,  *  immediately  appears  as  a  free  agent,  released 
from  tyrant  masters,  to  do  everything  of  itself  spontaneously,  without  the 
help  of  the  Gods.'  If  the  reasoning  from  man  to  matter  in  all  its  forms, 
the  form  of  reasoning  adopted  by  Epicurus  and  his  followers,  has  validity 
as  far  as  the  power  of  free  activity  is  concerned,  then  all  matter  must  be 
possessed,  not  only  of  Free  Will,  but  also  of  Intelligence  and  Sensibility. 
We  do  not  see  how  this  conclusion  can  be  avoided.  We  thus,  as  in  all 
'the  twistings  and  turnings '  of  error,  find  ourselves  freed  from  one 
difficulty  by  being  shoved  into  another  infinitely  greater.  Thus  the 
materialistic  world-problem,  unsolved,  and  to  all  appearance  of  impossible 
solution,  is  handed  over  for  solution  to  the  advocates  of  '  the  New 
Philosophy .'  The  problem  handed  down  to  them  is  plainly  this : 
Matter  and  space,  and  duration,  if  you  please,  being  given  as  being 
alone  real,  to  demonstrate  the  validity  of  the  doctrine  of  the  absolute 
eternity  of  the  present  order  of  things,  or  to  account  for  the  organization 
of  the  universe  as  an  event  of  time.  We  honestly  believe  that  not  one 
of  them  will  even  attempt  the  solution  of  this  problem  in  either  of  these 
forms  ;  that  its  solution  in  any  form  from  the  materialistic  standpoint  is 
impossible.  On  the  other  hand,  when  pressed  with  the  difficulties  of  their 
system,  and  confronted  with  their  own  problem,  they  will,  unquestion- 
ably, as  we  have  formerly  stated,  after  boldly  asserting  matter  to  be  the 
only  real  substance,  and  affirming  themselves  able  to  demonstrate  for 
life,  and  thought,  and  activity  in  all  its  forms,  an  exclusively  '  physical 
basis,'  they  will  finally  dodge  all  real  issues  by  affirming  that  'it  is 
certain  that  we  can  have  no  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  matter  and  spirit.' 
What  will  they  do,  we  ask,  when  it  shall  become  demonstrably  evident 
that,  while  the  Sceptical  hypothesis  cannot  be  defended,  the  facts  of  the 
universe,  as  actually  given  by  the  Universal  Intelligence,  are  equally  inex- 
plicable both  from  the  Materialistic  and  Idealistic  standpoint?  They 
will,  no  doubt,  continue,  first  of  all,  to  dogmatize,  as  knowing  all  things, 
and,  finally,  *  when  sorely  pressed,'  will  dodge  all  issues  by  affirming  an 
absolute  and  hopeless  ignorance  of  all  realities  about  which  they  have 
been  .'io  proudly  dogmatizing,  and  that  in  the  name  of  absolute  science. 


THE  STOICS.  295 


SECTION  V. 

THE  STOICS. 

Zeno  (about  350 — 248  B.a),  born  at  Citium,  a  city  of  Cyprus,  founded 
in  the  Stoa,  or  Porch,  at  Athens,  a  school  over  which  he  presided  for 
quite  half  a  century.  This  school  took  its  name,  Stoic,  from  the  place 
where  it  was  founded.  The  Stoics  classed  themselves  among  the  followers 
of  Socrates,  though  they  differed  from  him  in  fundamental  particulars. 
This  school  numbers  among  its  teachers  and  disciples  not  a  few  thinkers 
of  eminence,  such  as  Zeno,  its  founder,  Cleanthes  and  Chrysippus  among 
the  Greeks,  and  Seneca  and  Marcus  Aurelius  among  the  Romans. 

Philosophy  with  the  Stoics  culminates  in,  and  is  ancillary  to,  morality. 
To  understand  their  morality,  however,  we  must  know  their  Physics  or 
Ontology.  Here  a  difference  of  exposition  obtains  among  those  who 
have  studied  the  teachings  of  the  Stoics.  That  their  doctrines  were 
essentially  Pantheistic  all  agree.  But  whether  their  Pantheism  was  in  its 
nature  Materialistic  or*Idealistic,  here  the  highest  authorities  are  at  issue. 
Perhaps  clear  light  will  be  shed  upon  this  question  as  we  proceed  in  out 
expositions. 

Criteria  op  Truth  aooordinq  to  the  8x0101 
The  Stoics  and  Epicureans  were  the  thinkers  who  first  made  the  question, 
by  what  criteria  shall  truth  be  distinguished  from  error,  a  fundamental 
problem  in  science.  In  the  former  school  this  problem  had  a  wider  place 
than  in  the  latter.  The  question,  what  is  the  test  of  truth,  Aristotle 
treated  with  contempt.  With  the  Stoics  and  Epicureans,  the  former 
especially,  and  the  Post-Aristotelians,  this  question  was  regarded  as  of 
fundamental  interest.  The  Sceptics  denied  the  validity  of  the  intellectual 
faculties  entirely.  That  error,  in  some  form,  had  place  in  the  human 
mind,  all  had  to  admit.  The  question,  then,  by  what  criteria  shall  we 
distinguish  truth  from  error,  became  one  of  fundamental  interest. 

The  test  proposed  by  the  Stoics  was  really  identical  with  that  set  forth 
by  Sir  W.  Hamilton,  and  that  to  which  we  have  so  often  referred,  to  wit, 
Knowledge  consciously  direct  and  immediate,  must  be  accepted  as  valid 
for  the  reality  and  character  of  its  object.  They  designated  this  form  of 
Knowledge  by  such  phrases  as  *  certain  and  incontestable  apprehension,* 
an  apprehension  by  which  the  soul  '  grasps  the  object  of  representation,' 
a  representation  'impressed  and  sealed  on  the  mind,  and  incapable  of 
existing  without  the  existence  of  the  object.'  'In  our  perceptions  of 
external  objects,  and  also  of  internal  states,'  says  Chrysippus,  'the 
originally  vacant  suul    is    filled   with  images,  and  as   if  with  written 


296  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

characters.'  In  modern  scientific  language  this  criterion  of  valid  know- 
ledge may  be  th  is  expressed  :  Knowledge.,  consciously  direct  and  immediate, 
with  all  that  it  intuitively  and  deductively  implies,  must  be  accepted  as  having 
absolute  validity  for  the  existence  and  character  of  its  objects.  The  validity 
of  this  criterion,  which  the  Stoics  undeniably  intended  to  express,  has 
the  same  claims  to  scientific  recognition  that  any  other  axiom  has.  Had 
the  Stoics  stated  the  criterion  in  this  form,  its  validity  eould  never  have 
been  doubted.  In  the  light  of  this  criterion  we  distinguish  between  our 
knowledge  of  the  primary  and  secondary  qualities  of  matter.  Our  know- 
ledge of  the  latter  qualities  being  consciously  indirect  and  mediate,  has 
only  a  relative,  wliile  that  of  the  former,  being  consciously  direct  and 
immediate,  has  absolute  validity  for  (he  reality  and  character  of  its  objects. 
So  far  we  find  science  in  its  most  important  form  among  the  Stoics. 

The  Physics  op  the  Stoics. 
The  doctrine  of  Physics,  as  taught  by  the  Stoics,  included  both 
Cosmology  and  Theology.  The  criterion  of  truth  which  they  have  set 
forth  implies,  undeniably,  their  belief  in  the  real  existence  of  matter. 
Were  they,  in  the  strict  and  proper  sense  of  the  wjard,  Materialists  1  As 
neither  Zeno,  nor  his  immediate  successors,  left  any  treatises  of  their  own 
which  have  come  down  to  us,  we  are  necessitated  to  rely  upon  the  frag- 
mentary testimony  of  ancient  authors  who  did  know  what  were  the  real 
doctrines  of  this  school  Schwegler,  among  the  moderns,  gives  the  follow- 
ing account  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Stoics  :  '  Matter  is  the  passive  ground 
of  all  things,  the  original  substratum  for  the  Divine  activity.  God  is  the 
active  and  formative  energy  of  matter  dwelling  within  it,  and  essentially 
united  to  it ;  the  world  is  the  body  of  God,  and  God  is  the  soul  of  the 
world.  The  Stoics,  therefore,  considered  God  and  matter  as  one  identical 
substance  j  on  the  side  of  its  passive  changeable  capacity  they  call  it 
matter,  and  on  the  side  of  it«  active  and  changeless  energy,  God.'  *  The 
Stoics,'  says  Ueberweg,  the  latest  modern  authority, '  teach  that  whatever 
is  real  is  material.  Matter  and  force  are  the  two  ultimate  principles. 
Matter  is,  per  se,  motionless  and  unformed,  though  capable  of  receiving  all 
motions  and  all  forms.  Force  is  the  active,  moving,  and  moulding  principle. 
It  is  inseparably  joined  with  matter.  The  working  force  in  the  universe 
is  God.'  While  the  justness  of  such  representations  of  the  views  of  the 
Stoics  is  questioned  by  other  modern  authorities  of  the  highest  order, 
by  Dr.  Cocker,  for  example,  we  have  been  wholly  unable  to  obtain  from 
them,  or  from  any  other  source,  any  intelligible  account  of  any  system 
which  the  Stoics  may  be  supposed  to  have  held  differing  from  that  pre- 
sented by  the  authors  above  referred  to.  The  Stoics  held,  according 
to  Cicero,  as  cited  by  Dr.  Cocker  to  disprove  the  exposition  of  Schwegler, 
that  all  things  are  '  contained  by  one  Divine  Spirit,'  that  reason  in  man  id 


THE  STOICS.  297 


•  nothing  else  but  part  of  the  Divine  Spirit  merged  in  a  human  body.' 

*  They  say,'  says  Diogenes,  as  cited  for  the  same  purpose  by  the  same 
author,  *  that  principles  and  elements  differ  from  each  other.  Principles 
have  no  generation  or  beginning,  and  will  have  no  end  ;  but  elements 
may  be  destroyed.  Also,  that  elements  have  bodies,  and  have  forms,  but 
principles  have  no  bodies  and  no  forms.'  To  perceive  the  bearings  of  this 
passage,  we  must  determine  the  meaning  of  the  term  *  Principles '  as  here 
employed.  Principles  may  be  conceived  to  exist  independent  of  matter, 
and  to  act  upon  it  as  an  exterior  cause,  or  as  inhering  in  it,  and  acting 
potentially  as  such  an  inhering  cause.  That  the  latter  is  the  true  mean- 
ing of  this  term  in  the  passage  before  us  seems  quite  plain  from  the 
following  passage,  cited  also  from  Diogenes.  '  God  is  a  being  of  a  certain 
quality,  having  for  His  peculiar  manifestation  universal  substance.  He  ia 
a  being  imperishable,  and  who  never  had  any  generation,  being  the  Maker 
of  the  arrangement  and  order  that  we  see  ;  and  who  at  certain  periods  of 
time  absorbs  all  substance  in  Himself,  and  then  reproduces  it  from  Him- 
self.' Matter,  then,  and  God,  as  *  a  being  of  certain  quality,'  must  be  one 
and  identical  'The  Stoics,'  says  the  same  author  in  another  place, 
'  delined  the  passive  principle  as  unqualified  substance,  or  matter,  and  the 
active  principle  as  the  reason  immanent  in  matter,  or  Deity.'  '  Chrysippus 
teaches,'  says  Plutarch,  '  that  at  certain  periods  the  whole  world  is  resolved 
into  fire,  which  fire  is  identical  with  the  soul  of  the  world,  the  governing 
principle,  or  Zeus ;  but  at  other  times  a  part  of  this  fire,  a  germ,  as  it 
were,  detached  from  the  whole  mass,  becomes  changed  into  denser  sub- 
stance, and  so  leads  to  the  existence  of  concrete  objects  distinct  from 
Zeus.'  Again,  *  That  part  of  Deity  which  goes  forth  from  him  for  the 
formation  of  the  world  is  called  the  seminal  reason  of  the  world,  and  is 
resolved  into  a  plurality  oi  seminal  reasons.'  We  are  cum  palled,  therefore, 
to  regard  the  Stoics  as  Pantheists  of  the  Materialistic  School,  fire,  and 
spirit,  and  principle  being,  with  them,  synonymous  in  their  meaning. 
That  they  should  speak  of  this  omnipresent,  all-formative,  and  all-con- 
trolling fire  as  having  intelligence  and  other  analogous  attributes,  accordts 
with  common  usage  among  the  ancienta 

Some  op  the  Special  Doctrines  op  the  Stoics. 
Among  the  special  doctrines  of  the  Stoics  we  notice  the  following. 
The  human  soul  they  held  to  be  an  emanation  from  God,  and  destined 
to  hnal  absorption  in  Him.  All  souls,  according  to  Cleantheti,  exist  until 
the  general  conflagration.  Chrysippus  affirmed  that  all  but  the  wibe 
perish,  or  are  absorbed,  at  death.  Others  denied  the  future  existence  of 
all  souls  in  common.  The  universe,  they  regarded  as  limited  in  extent, 
and  Space  and  Time  aa  infinite ;  in  accordance  with  the  modern  exposi- 
tion.    All  moral  actions  they  held  to  be,  of  necessity,  of  an  unmixed 


29S  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

character.  Every  man,  for  the  time  being,  is  either  perfectly  virtuous  or 
vicious.  In  this  doctrine  they  agreed  with  Aristotle.  Zeno  divided  men 
absolutely  into  two  classes — the  good,  and  the  bad.  The  sage  differed 
from  Zeus  but  in  non-esseutials.  Chrysippus,  according  to  Plutarch, 
affirmed  that  '  Zeus  is  not  superior  to  Dio  in  virtue,  and  both  Zeus  and 
Dio,  in  so  far  as  they  are  wise,  are  equally  profited  the  one  by  the  other.' 
In  opposition  to  the  Epicureans,  the  Stoics  affirmed  the  doctrine  of 
universal  fate.  Evil  actions  were  by  some,  as  by  Cleanthes,  in  his  hymn 
to  Jupiter,  excepted  in  a  cert<ain  undefined  form  from  the  law  of  absolute 
necessity,  '  but  that  which  is  evil,'  he  adds,  *  is  overruled  by  thee  for 
good,  and  is  made  to  harmonize  with  the  plan  of  the  world.'  Absolute 
fatalism,  as  controlling  all  events,  and  all  actions  human  and  divine,  is 
the  avowed  doctrine  of  the  school  of  Stoicism. 

The  Ethics  op  the  Stoic3. 

The  Summum  Bonum,  with  the  Aristotelians,  is  happiness ;  with  the 
Epicureans,  pleasure ;  and  with  the  Stoics,  virtue.  In  this  doctrine  the 
Stoics  and  Platouists  agreed.  They  diifered  fundamentally,  however,  in 
respect  to  the  doctrine  of  Free  Will,  and  the  consequent  moral  desert  of 
human  action.  With  the  latter,  the  doctrine  of  moral  obligation,  moral 
desert  and  retribution,  was  promineut  in  all  their  teachings.  While  in 
the  teachings  of  the  former  virtue  has  supreme  prominence,  obligation, 
desert,  and  retribution,  have  almost  no  place. 

Moral  virtue,  as  taught  by  the  Stoics,  took  form  from  their  ideas  of 
the  fatal  necessity  which  absolutely  controlled  all  events.  All  things 
must  be  as  they  are,  and  cannot  in  future  but  occur  as  predetermined  by 
necessary  law.  The  absolute  consent  of  Will  that  all  things  shall  be  as  they 
cannot  but  be,  that  is  moral  virtue,  that  is  the  absolute  perfection  of  the 
sage.  '  Endure,'  'endure,'  'this  is  the  whole  duty  of  man.'  The  universal 
formula  of  moral  duty,  Diogenes  Laertius  expresses  in  this  form  :  '  Live 
conformably  to  Nature — that  is,  to  Reason,  or  the  will  of  the  Universal 
Manager  and  Governor  of  all  things.'  '  Dare  to  lift  thine  eye  to  God,  and 
say,'  says  Epictetus,  ' "  Use  me  hereafter  to  whatever  Thou  pleasest,  I 
agree,  and  am  of  the  same  mind  with  Thee,  indifferent  to  all  things."  '  To 
place  all  good  in  virtue,  that  is,  in  being  stolidly  '  indifferent  to  all  things,' 
to  regard  pleasure  and  happiness  as  not  real  good,  and  pain  as  no  evil — 
this  is  living  according  to  nature.  External  objects  were  classed  as  things 
to  be  preferred,  and  things  not  to  be  preferred.  *  As  life  belongs  to  things 
indifferent,  suicide  was  permissible,  as  a  rational  means  of  terminating 
life.' 

Among  the  teachings  of  the  Stoics,  a  few  utterances  of  such  men  as 
Marcus  Aurelius  excepted,  we  search  in  vain  for  any  features  or  elements 
of  moral  virtue  which  correspond  with  the  true  or  Christian  idea.     In- 


THE  STOICS.  299 


difference  to  what  may,  because  it  must  occur,  acquiescence  in  the  Divine 
will,  as  a  decree  of  'fate  which  neither  divinity  nor  humanity  can  change,* 
is  one  thing ;  and  loving  God  with  all  our  power,  because  He  is  love  and 
first  loved  us,  placing  an  infinite  value  upon  our  own  and  our  neigh- 
bour's good,  and  for  that  reason  loving  him  as  ourselves,  regarding  pain 
as  real  evil,  and  seeking  to  remove  all  the  remedial  *  ills  that  flesh  is  heir 
to,'  acquiescing  in  Providence  because  infallible  Wisdom  and  perfect 
Love  has  determined  our  state — here  are  forms  of  real  virtue  to  which 
Stoicism  is  an  utter  stranger,  and  which  it  has  no  tendency  to  induce. 
It  is  no  matter  of  wonder  that  a  long-continued  attempt  to  conform,  by 
a  proud  and  self-reliant  dint  of  will,  to  such  a  cold  and  soul-desolating 
ideal  as  Stoicism  presented,  rendered  such  minds  as  Zeno,  Cleanthes, 
Cato  and  Seneca  so  intolerably  weary  of  life,  that  they  escaped  from  it 
by  acts  of  suicide. 


CHAPTER  IIL 

THE  DECLINE  OF  THE  GRECIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 
INTRODUCTION. 

SECTION  L 

CAUSES  OF  THIS  DECLINE. 

With  Plato,  Aristotle,  Epicurus,  Zeno,  the  Stoics,  and  their  immediate 
successors,  Grecian  Philosophy  reached  its  consummation.  "With  the 
disappearance  of  this  constellation  of  great  thinkers,  the  decline,  or  better, 
perhaps,  the  eclipse  of  this  Philosophy,  commenced — an  eclipse  which 
continuously  grew  more  dim  and  deep  until  *  darkness  all,  and  ever-during 
night,'  seemed  to  surround  the  human  mind.  We  know  of  but  one 
expression  which  properly  represents  the  state  of  philosophic  thought,  both 
in  Greece  and  Rome,  at  the  time  when  '  the  Sun  of  Righteousness  rose 
upon  the  earth  with  healing  in  His  wings ' — to  wit,  '  chaos  has  come  again.' 
Under  the  teachings  of  false  science  Greece  had  lost  her  liberty,  her 
forms  of  sober  thought,  and  her  morals.  Under  the  same  influence, 
associated  with  the  pride  of  conquest  and  superabundant  luxuries,  Rome 
had  descended  to  a  state  in  which,  in  the  impressive  language  of  Tacitus, 
*  she  could  neither  endure  her  vices,  nor  the  remedy.' 

If  we  should  inquire  for  the  cause  of  this  decline,  we  should  find  it  in 
the  state  in  which  the  great  problem  of  universal  being  and  its  laws  was 
handed  over  by  these  thinkers  to  their  successors.  In  the  Academy,  the 
Lyceum,  the  Garden,  and  the  Porch,  in  each  school,  the  problem  under 
consideration  Avas  presented  to  the  world  as  fully  solved.  Yet  the  solu- 
tion presented  by  each  was,  in  essential  particulars,  perfectly  autagouistie 
to  that  presented  by  every  other.  The  phase  in  which  each  school 
contemplated  this  problem,  together  with  its  method  of  induction  and 
deduction,  was,  in  important  respects,  special  and  peculiar.  At  the  same 
time  no  generally  recognized  criteria  were  then  known  —  criteria  by 
which  truth  could  be  distinguished  from  error     Each  school  had  its  own 


CA  USES  OF  THIS  DECLIXE.  301 

exclusive  method  of  induction  and  deduction,  and  its  own  peculiar  and 
special  tests  of  truth  and  error.  Yet  there  seemed  to  he  a  necessary 
connection  between  the  method  and  criteria  of  each  school  and  its  final 
deductions.  In  the  then  existing  state  of  science  the  best  thinkers 
found  it  very  difficult,  or  impossible,  to  detorniine  why  the  method  or 
deductions  of  any  one  school  should  be  rep[arded  as  less  valid  than  those 
of  any  other.  But  one  alternative  seemed  left  for  those  who  were  seeking 
truth — an  unqualified  adoption  of  the  exclusive  system  of  one  of  those 
schools,  and  a  repudiation  of  those  of  all  the  others — a  procedure  for 
which  no  even  apparently  good  reasons  could  be  offered— or  a  repudiation 
of  all  systems  in  common,  and  that  by  a  general  impeachment  of  the 
Intelligence  itself  as  a  faculty  of  knowledge — an  impeachment  seemingly 
sustained  by  many  apparently  valid  reasons,  as  presented  in  these  various 
schools.  The  Platonists,  while  they  affirmed  absolute  validity  for  a  prion 
insight  through  reason,  utterly  repudiated  the  validity  of  Sense-perception, 
and  affirmed  a  mere  '  bastard  kind  of  knowledge '  of  matter.  Aristotle, 
while  he  impeached,  and  for  undeniably  valid  reasons,  the  validity  of 
knowledge  through  Reason,  as  far  as  Platonic  Ideas  are  concerned,  affirmed 
that  knowledge,  in  no  form,  is  more  certain  than  that  obtained  through 
Sense-perception.  The  Epicureans  and  Stoics,  while  they  verified  by 
criteria  of  undeniable  validity  the  absolute  truthfulness  of  knowledge 
through  Sense-perception,  denied  utterly  the  validity  of  knowledge  in  all 
other  forms.  The  same  diversity  and  antagonism  obtained  relative  to 
the  teachings  of  these  schools  in  respect  to  fundamental  morality  and  the 
doctrine  of  the  Suramum  Bonum.  The  Platonists  and  Stoics  affirmed  a 
necessary  and  immutable  distinction  between  the  right  and  the  wrong, 
and,  for  morality,  an  immovable  basis  in  the  nature  of  things.  The 
Aristotelians  and  Epicureans  affirmed,  for  the  right  and  the  wrong,  no 
other  distinction,  and  for  morals  no  other  foundation,  than  what  is  found 
in  a  perceived  tendency  to  insure  happiness  or  misery,  pleasure  or  pain. 
All  these  antagonistic  hypotheses  had  advocates  of  the  highest  eminence, 
and  were  sustained  by  reasons  of  equally  apparent  validity.  The  only 
seeming  alternative,  we  repeat,  which  remained  for  thinkers,  was  either 
to  repudiate  all  hypotheses  in  common,  and  that  by  a  denial  of  the 
possibility  of  valid  knowledge,  in  any  form,  or  to  adopt  some  one 
exclusive  system  which  was  verified  by  no  reasons  of  higher  apparent 
■validity  than  was  each  of  the  others.  The  Greek  mind  would  not  long 
remain  in  such  a  dilemma.  Nor  in  human  thought,  in  that  era,  did  the 
idea  obtain  a  place  that  all  these  schools  were  essentially  rij;ht  on  the 
positive  sides  of  their  systems.  Plato  and  Aristotle,  for  example,  unitedly 
taught  the  fundamental  distinction  between  spirit  and  matter,  and  the 
real  existence  of  each  form  of  being.  The  Epicureans  and  Stoics  both 
verified,  by  undeniable  criteria,  the  validity  of  Sense-perception  for  the 


302  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

reality  of  *  things  without  us.*  Here  we  have  the  positive  teachings  of 
all  these  schools,  and  so  far  we  find  essential  truth.  Had  these  positive 
teachings  been  accepted,  and  with  them  the  validity  of  the  distinction 
between  matter  and  spirit,  and  of  our  knowledge  of  the  same,  Pliilosophy 
would,  from  that  time  onward,  not  only  have  moved  upon  the  track  of 
truth,  but  would  have  permanently  commanded  the  faith  of  mankind. 
Greek  thought,  however,  naturally  took  the  direction  of  Scepticism  as  its 
prevailing  movement.  Hence,  in  Greek  and  Roman  thought,  doubt 
became  the  prevailing  faith  of  the  schools  especially.  In  addition  to  tho 
above,  which  may  be  regarded  as  the  chief  causes  of  the  decline  of  thu 
Grecian  Philosophy,  other  and  incidental  causes  acted  with  great  po\v<^r 
to  induce  the  same  results.  Among  these  incidental  causes  we  would 
specify  the  following : 

Incidental  Causes  op  the  Decline  op  the  Grecian  Philosophy. 

1.  One  of  the  main  causes  which  incidentally  led  to  this  decline,  was 
the  almost  boundless  sphere  professedly  occupied  by  Grecian  philosophic 
thought  in  its  different  schools.  In  Grecian  thought,  in  its  positive 
forms,  as  we  have  before  stated,  there  was  no  place  for  the  mysterious. 
Universal  being  and  its  laws  were,  throughout  all  departments  of  real 
existence,  kuowable,  and  all  its  facts  were  equally  explicable.  The  philo- 
sopher affirmed  himself,  and  that  before  the  world,  possessed  of  universal 
knowledge  in  all  these  forms. 

Plato,  for  example,  professed  to  know  that  all  forms  of  Sense-perception 
are  illusory,  and  that  all  the  realities  thus  apprehended  are  '  of  the  nature 
of  that  which  is  and  is  not,'  and  that  matter,  which  he  affirmed  to  be 
real,  is  the  object  of  a  mere  'bastard  kind  of  knowledge.'  At  the  same 
time,  '  through  Reason  in  an  intuitive  manner,'  he  professed  himself  pos- 
sessed of  a  universal  and  absolute  knowledge  of  '  being  per  se,'  that  is,  of 
all  that  really  exists,  together  with  all  its  relations.  In  his  multitudinous 
productions,  he  professedly  unfolds  to  us  '  all  mysteries  and  all  know- 
ledge,' on  all  subjects  pertaining  to  '  being  per  se,'  its  relations  and  laws. 
He,  accordingly,  gives  us,  first  of  all,  what  is  the  nature  of  matter,  its 
primal  state,  and  its  absolute  subjection  to  Necessity.  He  then  informs 
us  how  that  God,  wishing  to  make  the  universe  as  perfect  as  possible, 
'  persuaded  Necessity  to  become  stable,  harmonious,  and  fashioned  accord- 
ing to  Excellence.'  Then  we  have  a  minute  and  detailed  account  of 
the  entire  process  of  creation,  the  form  and  location  of  the  earth,  and 
its  relations  to  all  other  planets,  and  the  principle  which  determined  the 
distances  of  the  earth  and  planets  from  one  another,  how  far  the  Most 
High,  did  himself  carry  forward  the  work  of  creation,  the  identical 
speech  which  he  delivered  to  the  inferior  gods  when  he  committed  to 
them  the  completing  of  the  work  commenced,  and .  the  perfecting  and 


CAUSES  OF  THIS  DECLINE.  303 

final  control  of  the  same,  and  how  he  then  fell  back  into  his  usual  repose. 
This  is  onlj  a  mere  example  of  Plato's  absolute  and  universal  revelations 
pertaining  to  'being  ^er  s«.'  Now  when  an  individual  attempts  to  fill 
out  such  a  boundless  sphere  as  this,  he  will  of  necessity,  to  say  nothing 
of  his  method,  set  forth  numberless  forms  of  readily  detected  error  and 
absurdity,  the  exposure  of  which  will  throw  serious  doubts,  to  say  the 
least,  over  the  validity  of  all  his  teachings.  No  system  excited  such 
antagonisms  as  that  of  Plato,  and  none  ever  presented  so  many  sides 
where  it  could  be  successfully  assailed.  Hence  no  system  sooner  fell 
under  the  shock  of  criticism.  In  a  very  short  time  the  Old  Academy 
was  wholly  supplanted  by  the  New,  in  the  latter  of  which  the  teachings 
of  Plato  received  fundamental  modifications,  and  finally  were  utterly 
subverted. 

Eemarks  perfectly  similar  apply  to  the  teachings  of  Aristotle.  In 
method  he  professedly  differed  in  fundamental  respects  from  Plato. 
While  the  latter  took  positions  in  the  sphere  of  *  existence  in  se,'  the 
former  located  his  standpoint  within  the  circle  of  facts  of  perception. 
In  this  sphere,  however,  Aristotle  really  attempted  an  exposition  of 
universal  science  in  all  its  forms.  Hence,  he  *  made  nothing '  perfect,' 
and  so  intermingled  important  truth  with  manifest  fundamental  error,  as 
to  induce  a  general  doubt  of  the  possibility  of  science  in  any  form. 

Similar  remarks  are  almost  equally  applicable  to  the  productions  of 
other  schools.  One  of  the  most  multitudinous  of  all  the  ancient  writers 
was  Epicurus.  Yet  no  author  was  more  obviously  inconclusive  than  he 
in  his  endlessly  diversified  deductions.  When  the  undeniable  errors  of 
such  pre-eminent  thinkers  become  known  and  read  of  all  men,  the 
popular  mind  was,  almost  of  course,  thrown  under  the  power  of 
Scepticism. 

2.  The  character  of  absoluteness,  which  was  attached  in  all  these  schools 
to  their  varied  deductions,  was  another  very  efficient  cause  which  operated 
to  induce  the  general  Scepticism  of  the  succeeding  era.  The  deductions 
of  each  school  were  in  open  antagonism  with  those  of  every  other,  and 
many  of  these  deductions  were  manifestly  false.  Yet  each  deduction, 
however  grossly  absurd,  and  manifestly  false,  and  however  contradictory 
to  others  coming  from  authorities  of  equally  apparent  validity,  W£is  given 
forth  as  absolute  truth.  Nothing  but  an  almost  resistless  reaction  against 
the  idea  of  the  possibility  of  science  itself  is  to  be  expected  under  such 
circumstances.  When  Plato,  for  example,  affirmed  that  *  the  knowledge 
which  by  Reason,  in  an  intuitive  manner,  we  may  acquire  of  real  existence 
and  intelligible  things,  is  of  a  higher  degree  of  certainty  than  the  know- 
ledge which  belongs  to  what  are  commonly  called  the  sciences,'  of  which 
mathematics  are  specified  iu  illustration;  and  when,  through  this  affirmed 
iasight  of  Eeason,  he  gave  forth,  as  forms  of  absolute  truth,  enunciations 


304  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

■which,  in  other  schools,  were  demonstrated  to  be  nothing  but  al)surditie3 
and  errors  of  the  grossest  character,  it  is  no  matter  of  wonder  that  man- 
kind, at  length,  doubted  and  denied  the  validity  of  Eeason-iusiglit  in  all 
its  forms. 

3  The  high  personal  pretensions  of  philosophers  in  all  the  schools, 
pretensions  which  stood  out  visibly  associated  with  demonstrated  forms 
of  gross  absurdity  and  error,  were  another  cause  which  powerfully  operated 
to  induce  a  general  distrust  of  the  possibility  of  valid  knowledi^e 
in  any  form,  and  to  render  doubt  the  prevailing  faith  of  the  race.  Plato, 
for  example,  claimed  for  philosophers,  not  only  inspiration,  but  the  pos- 
session of  a  faculty  of  absolute  insight  pertaining  to  '  real  existence  and 
intelligible  things,'  a  faculty  possessed  only  by  the  gods  and  a  very  small 
portion  of  mankind,  and  claimed,  finally,  that  none  but  these  philosophers 
Were  qualified  to  rule  the  human  race.  In  all  schools  in  common,  philo- 
sophers unblushingly  claimed,  that  *  they  were  the  men,  and  that  wisdom 
would  die  with  them.'  They  only  were  Philosophers  (lovers  of  wisdom, 
and  possessed  of  the  same).  Sophists  (wise  men),  Sages  (men  of  gravity  and 
universal  knowledge).  They  held  *  the  key  of  knowledge,'  and  were  alone 
possessed  of  power  to  teach  the  truth.  Now,  when  men  of  such  high  pre- 
tensions will  convict  each  other  before  the  world  of  the  grossest  errors  and 
absurdities,  will  agree  in  nothing  among  themselves,  and  never  unite  but 
to  dispute,  their  combined  influence  tends  in  but  one  direction — universal 
Scepticism. 

4.  "We  refer  to  but  one  other  incidental  cause  of  the  decline  of  the 
Grecian  Philosophy — the  absence  of  any  generally  admitted  criteria  of 
valid  knowledge.  Aristotle,  as  we  have  seen,  ridiculed  the  idea  that  such, 
criteria  exist.  Plato  makes  no  allusion  to  the  subject.  Heraclitus,  the 
Epicureans,  and  Stoics,  recognized  and  affirmed  the  importance  and  neces- 
sity of  such  criteria,  and  did  set  forth,  as  we  have  seen,  criteria  which, 
when  clearly  defined,  must  be  admitted  to  have  absolute  validity.  Out- 
side the  individual  schools  themselves,  the  validity  of  these  tests  was 
denied.  In  their  endless  disputations  neither  party  could  present  any 
criteria  by  which  truth  could  be  distinguished  from  error — criteria  the 
validity  of  which  the  opposite  party  admitted.  Such  disputations,  con- 
sequently, could  settle  nothing.  The  final  result  of  such  disputations 
could  hardly  be  anything  else  than  general  doubt  of  the  possibility  of 
knowledge  in  any  form. 

SECTION  IL 

THE  SCEPTICAL  PHILOSOPHT. 

Wb  bare,  perhaps,  on  former  occasions  said  all  that  need  be  said  in 
refutation  of  the  Sceptical  Philosophy.  As  we  have  now  approached  the 
era  of  its  full  and  perfect  development,  the  era  in  which  it  commanded  a 


THE  SCEPTICAL  PHILOSOPHY.  305 


wider  assent  from  the  race  than  ever  before,  or  since,  and  as  we  have  before 
us  all  that  modern  thought  has  developed  in  connection  with  this  system  ; 
further,  as  we  have  in  Mr.  Lewes'  statement  of  the  doctrine  the  exact  issue 
between  Scepticism  and  Realism,  the  issue  as  presented  in  ancient  and 
modern  times,  we  shall  in  this  connection  give  to  the  subject  a  special 
consideration,  craving  indulgence  for  a  necessary  repetition  of  some  forms 
of  thought  formerly  presented.  We  will  present  the  issue  as  stated  by 
Mr.  Lewes  himsel£ 

The  Issue  as  Stated  by  Mr.  Lewes, 
*  WhxLt  Criterion  is  there  of  the  truth  of  our  hnoivledge  f 
The  Criterion  must  reside  in  Reason,  in  Conception,  or  in  Sensation. 
It  cannot  reside  in  Reason,  because  Reason  itself  is  not  independent  of  the 
other  two  :  it  operates  upon  materials  furnished  by  them,  and  is  depen- 
dent upon  them.  Our  knowledge  is  deriveii  from  the  senses,  and  every 
object  presented  to  the  mind  must  consequently  have  been  originally 
presented  to  the  senses.     On  their  accuracy  the  mind  must  depend. 

Reason  cannot  therefore  contain  within  itself  the  desired  Criterion 
jS"or  can  Conception,  for  the  same  argument  applies  to  it.  Nor  can  the 
Criterion  reside  in  Sense ;  because,  as  all  admit,  the  Senses  are  deceptive, 
and  there  is  no  perception  which  cannot  be  false.  For  what  is  Percep- 
tion ?  Our  Senses  only  inform  us  of  the  presence  of  an  object  in  so  far 
as  they  are  affected  by  it.  But  what  is  this  1  Is  it  not  we  who  are 
affected,  we  who  are  modified  1  Yes,  and  this  modification  reveals  both 
itself  and  the  object  which  causes  it.  Like  light,  which,  in  showing 
itself,  shows  also  the  objects  upon  which  it  is  thrown;  like  light  also,  it 
shows  objects  in  its  own  colours.  Perception  is  a  peculi?r  modification  of 
the  soul.  The  whole  problem  now  to  solve  is  this :  'Does  every  modification 
of  tJie  soul  exactly  correspo7id  with  the  external  object  which  causes  that  modi- 
fication ?'  We  give  the  above  passage  as  we  find  it,  italics  and  all.  Now, 
there  are  in  the  above  passage  more  errors  of  even  a  fundamental  character 
than  we  shall  have  space  to  notice.  Among  the  most  important  of  these 
we  specify  the  following : 

Erroneous  Statemexts  akd  Expositions  op  Mr  Lewes. 
1.  There  is  no  such  '  problem  now  to  solve  '  as  he  has  presented.  No 
thinker  now  affirms,  or  ever  did  affirm,  that  *  every  modification  of  the 
soul  exactly  corresponds  with  the  external  object  which  causes  that 
modification.'  All  admit  and  affirm  that  Sensation,  as  a  sensitive  '  modi- 
fication of  the  soul,'  does  not,  in  any  sense,  correspond  with  '  the  external 
object  which  causes  that  modification,'  that  is,  the  Sensation.  All  admit 
and  affirm  that  the  secondary  qualities  of  matter  are  the  unknown  causi  a 
of  known,  or  conscious,  states  of  the  Sensibility,  namely,  of  Sensations. 

20 


3o6  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  nflirmed  that  the  primary  qualities  of  this 
substance  are  the  knoiim  objects  of  consciously  known  states,  or  acts,  of 
the  Intelligence,  Sense-perception.  Sensation,  as  a  sensitive  '  modification 
of  the  soul,'  is  one  thing.  Perception,  consciously  direct  and  immediate, 
perception  as  an  intellectual  act,  state,  or  '  modification  of  the  soul,'  is 
quite  another.  '  The  whole  problem  now  to  solve '  is  this  :  Not  whether 
'  every  modification  of  the  soul  exactly  corresponds  with  the  external 
object  which  causes  that  modification,'  but,  Does  knowledge  consciously 
direct  and  immediate,  or  intuitive,  what  all  admit  to  be  true  of  our  per- 
ceptions of  the  primary  qualities  of  matter,  does  knowledge  in  this  absolutely 
consciov^s  form,  represent  its  object  as  it  is,  or  as  it  is  not?  In  other  words, 
is  knowledge  consciously  direct  and  immediate,  or  presentative,  to  be 
regarded  as  valid  or  invalid,  veritable  or  false,  truthful  or  deceptive  1  No 
philosopher,  '  from  Protagoras  to  Kant/  or  from  Kant  to  Mr.  Lewes, 
Spencer,  or  Huxley,  will  deny  that  our  knowle<lge  of  the  secondary 
qualities  of  matter  is  consciously  indirect  and  mediate,  through  Sensation, 
or  representative  ;  and  that  our  knowledge  of  the  primary  qualities  of  the 
same  substance,  extension  and  form,  for  example,  is  as  consciously  direct 
and  immediate,  or  presentative.  *  The  whole  problem  now  to  solve,'  we 
repeat,  is  this  :  Not  whether  knowledge  consciously  indirect  and  mediate, 
or  representative,  but  whether  knowledge,  consciously  direct  and  imme- 
diate, intuitive,  or  presentative,  is  true  or  false,  veritable  or  deceptive. 

2.  *  As  all  admit,'  says  Mr.  Lewes,  *  the  senses  are  deceptive,  and 
there  is  no  perception  which  cannot  be  false.'  Now  all  deny  what  he  here 
affirms  that  '  all  admit'  All  mankind  do  believe,  and  ever  have  believed, 
in  the  validity  of  external  perception.  Nor  is  Protagoras,  or  Kant,  or 
Mr.  Lewes  himself  an  exception  to  this  statement.  Philosophers  may 
call  *  this  universal  faith  in  the  reality  of  things  without  us,'  '  illusory,' 
or  'nothing  but  a  prejudice.'  Yet  they  must  admit,  with  Kant  and 
Coleridge,  and  Plato,  and  all  other  philosophers,  that  this  faith  is  universal 
with  the  race,  '  innate  indeed  and  connatural,'  *  unavoidable  and  irradic- 
able,'  and  as  a  principle  *  inheres  in  reason '  itself. 

It  would  be  nearer  the  truth  to  affirm  that  the  senses  never  deceive  ns 
than  to  affirm  them  to  be  always  deceptive.  As  we  have  formerly  stated, 
we  are  conscious  of  Sensation  as  a  fact.  Here  the  object,  the  Sensation, 
is  known  as  it  is  in  itself,  The  Sensation,  as  an  object  of  consciousness,  is 
never  deceptive,  but  is  known  as  it  is.  The  object  and  cause  of  the  Sensa- 
tion is  consciously  given  as  real,  but  unknown,  and  here  the  senses  do  not 
deceive  us.  If  the  secondary  qualities  of  matter  were  given  as  the  known 
objects  of  conscious  states  of  the  Intelligence,  instead  of  the  unknown 
causes  of  conscious  states  of  the  Sensibility,  we  should  be  deceived. 

In  external  perception,  also,  as  far  as  what  is  really  perceived  is  con- 
cerned, there  is  no  deception.     The  objects  of  direct  and  immediate  know- 


THE  .SCEPTICAL  PHILOSOPHY.  307 


ledge  really  exist,  and  the  qualities  actually  perceived  are  real  In  our 
judgments,  assumptions,  and  guesses,  in  regard  to  objects  perceived,  here, 
and  here  exclusively,  all  our  mistakes,  deceptions,  *  blunders  and  foolish 
notions,'  are  formed.  The  confounding  of  facts  of  real  perception,  that  is, 
what  is  actually  perceived,  with  the  judgments,  opinions,  conjectures, 
and  guesses,  which  are  connected  with  and  based  upon  such  facts,  has 
occasioned  all  the  errors  of  philosophers  in  respect  to  the  validity  of 
Sense-perception.  Instead  of  there  being  *  no  perception  which  cannot 
be  false,'  there  can,  in  fact,  be  no  real  perception  which  is  not  true,  per- 
ception being  a  pure  and  intuitive  intellectual  state,  and  being  necessarily 
conformed  to  its  object.  That  is  undeniably  '  science  falsely  so-called  ' 
which  aflBrms  the  Intelligence  itself,  in  its  necessary  and  intuitive  pro- 
cedures, to  be  a  faculty  of  deceptive  error. 

3.  In  the  following  statement  of  Mr.  Lewes,  also,  we  detect  error  of  a 
perfectly  fundamental  character  :  *  Our  knowledge  is  derived  from  our 
senses,  and  every  object  presented  to  the  mind  must  consequently  have 
been  originally  presented  to  the  senses,  and  on  their  accuracy  the  mind 
must  depend.'  Space  and  time,  we  know  to  be  realities,  or  we  know  and 
can  know  nothing,  and  each  of  these  realities  is  known  to  be  infinite. 
Have  infinite  space  and  eternal  duration  ever  'been  presented  to  the 
senses  V  Have  the  principles,  Every  event  must  have  a  cause,  Body  im- 
plies space.  Succession  implies  time,  and  Things  equal  to  the  same  thing 
are  equal  to  one  another,  ever  been  *  presented  to  the  senses  1*  "What 
fact  of  mind  was  ever  *  presented  to  the  senses '?  Sensation  itself, 
as  a  subjective  state,  is  real,  and  is  known  as  such,  and  was  never 
yet  '  presented  to  the  senses.'  In  addition  to  the  faculty  of  Sense-per- 
ception, we  have  two  other  faculties  of  original  intuition,  faculties  of 
which  thinkers  of  the  school  of  Mr.  Lewes  take  no  account,  namely,  Self- 
consciousness,  and  Reason  the  organ  of  intuitively  implied  knowledge. 

4.  The  gravest  of  all  the  errors  of  Mr.  Lewes,  however,  is  his  state- 
ment and  location  of  the  Criterion  of  truth.  *  The  Criterion,'  he  says, 
*  must  reside  either  in  Reason,  in  Conception,  or  in  Sensation.'  Unless 
some  faculty  can  be  found,  we  are  here  informed,  which  can  bo  de- 
monstrated to  possess  sovereign  authority  to  sit  in  judgment  over  the 
validity  of  its  own  dicta,  and  those  of  all  the  other  faculties,  we  have,  and 
can  have,  no  such  Criterion  whatever  ;  '  vain  wisdom  all,  and  false  philo- 
sophy.' Let  us,  in  illustration,  apply  the  principle  here  given  to  a 
single  case.  On  a  post-mortem  examination,  a  substance  supposed  to  be 
arsenic  is  found  in  the  stomach  of  the  deceased.  The  case  is  brought  into 
court,  and  the  usual  Criteria  are  being  applied  to  determine  the  nature  of 
the  substance  under  consideration.  The  attorney  on  one  side  rises,  and 
objects  to  the  whole  procedure,  as  utterly  invalid.  *  The  Criterion,'  he 
affirms,  if  it  exists  at  all,  *  must  be  found  in  Reason,  in  Conception,  or 

20—2 


3o8  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  nULOSOPIIY, 

in  Sensation.  It  cannot  reside  in  Eeason,  because  Eeason  itself  is  not 
independent  of  the  other  two ;  it  operates  upon  materials  furnished  by 
them,  and  is  dependent  on  them.'  *  Nor  can  Conception,  for  the  same 
reason  apply  to  it.  Kor  can  the  Criterion  reside  in  Sense,  because, 
as  all  admit,  the  Senses  are  deceptive,  and  there  is  no  perception  which 
cannot  be  false.'  Mr.  Lewes,  perhaps,  and  philosophers  of  his  school, 
would  expect  and  demand  a  prompt  dismissal  of  the  case,  the  court 
having  been  demonstrated  to  be  possessed  of  no  *  Criterion '  by  which 
arsenic  can  be  distinguished  from  mud.  The  judge  would  reply,  how- 
ever, that  no  one  human  faculty  was  in  court  at  all,  as  containing  the 
Criterion  of  truth.  There  were  certain  known  facts,  or  characteristics, 
■which  distinguish  arsenic  from  all  other  substances,  and  it  was  in  the 
light  of  such  Criteria,  that  they  were  about  to  decide  the  question  bof  ire 
them.  So  we  would  inform  Mr.  Lewes,  and  all  other  philosophers  who 
have  erred  as  he  has  done,  that  he  is  right  in  arguing,  that  no  one 
faculty  of  the  Intelligence  can  sit  in  judgment  upon  the  dicta  of  any 
other  faculty ;  but  that  he  fundamentally  errs  in  assuming  that  unless 
such  an  all-authoritative  faculty  does  exist,  we  have  no  Criterion  of  truth 
whatever.  All  admit,  Sceptics  among  the  rest,  that  there  do  exist  in 
the  human  mind  forms  of  real  knowledge,  forms  of  knowledge  inter- 
mingled with  assumptions,  opinions,  beliefs,  and  conjectures,  some  of 
which  may  be  true  and  others  false.  Now  there  must  be  some  fixed 
characteristics  which  distinguish  and  separate  forms  of  knowledge  proper 
from  apprehensions  which  are,  or  may  be,  false.  These  Criteria  exist,  riot 
in  any  one  mental  faculty,  but  in  the  apprehensions  themselves.  When 
•we  have  determined  what  these  characteristics  are  we  have  the  Criteria 
after  which  we  are  inquiring.  To  admit,  as  we  must,  that  such  Criteria 
do  exist,  but  that  we  cannot  discover  them,  is  an  impeachment  of  the 
Intelligence  which  even  Scepticism  will  be  slow  to  make.  Real  know- 
ledge in  some  form  does  undeniably  have  place  in  the  human  mind,  and 
is  possessed  there  of  characteristics  which  we  can  discern,  and  thus  dis- 
tinguish and  separate  the  real  from  the  unreal.  In  former  parts  of  this 
treatise  we  have  designated  and  verified  such  Criteria.  For  the  full 
accomplishment  of  the  purpose  we  now  have  in  view,  we  will  restate,  in 
this  connection,  some  of  these  Criteria. 

Criteria  of  Valid  Knowledge. 
1.  Forms  of  intuitive  knowledge  strictly  common  to  all  the  race,  and 
that  in  all  ages  and  under  all  circumstances  of  conscious  existence,  must 
be  held  as  having  absolute  validity  for  the  reality  and  character  of  their 
objects.  We  must  admit  the  strict  validity  of  this  Criterion,  or  assume, 
and  that  for  no  reasons  whatever,  the  Universal  Intelligence  itself  to  be  a 
lie.    The  Question  now  before  us  is  not  whether  such  furms  of  knowledge 


THE  SCEPTICAL  PHILOSOPHY  309 

do  exist,  but  whether,  supposing  them  real,  they  are,  or  are  not,  to  be 
recognized  as  valid  for  truth.  No  thinker  who  has  any  respect  for  his 
character  as  such  a  person,  will  question  the  validity  of  this  CriterioiL 

2.  Forms  of  original  intuition,  apprehended  by  universal  mind  as 
necessarily  true,  must  also  be  accepted  as  valid  for  truth.  We  must 
admit  the  strict  validity  of  this  Criterion,  or  deny  absolutely  the  distinc- 
tion between  the  possible  and  the  impossible. 

3.  All  forms  of  knowledge  consciously  direct  and  immediate,  that  is, 
intuitive  and  presentaiive,  must  be  held  as  valid  for  truth.  We  have  here, 
what  even  the  Sceptic  will  not  deny,  an  ultimate  Criterion  of  truth-^a 
Criterion  of  absolute  validity.  The  Sceptic  .may  deny  the  existence  of 
such  forms  of  knowledge.  He  will  not,  however,  deny  their  validity, 
supposing  them  real. 

4.  Absolute  fixedness  and  immutability  is  another  Criterion  of  un- 
deniable validity.  Eeal  knowledge,  just  as  far  as  it  extends,  can  be 
suiiject  to  no  change  or  modification.  To  suppose  it  changeable  would 
imply  that  it  is  not  knowledge.  Here  lies  the  fundamental  distinction 
between  real  knowledge  on  the  one  hand,  and  assumptions,  opinions, 
beliefs,  conjectures,  and  guesses  on  the  other.  The  latter  are  continuously 
subject  to  change,  modification,  and  displacement  from  human  thought 
and  regard.  The  former  can  never  be  changed,  modified,  or  displaced 
from  the  mind. 

5.  The  universal  consciousness  of  absolute  certainty  is  another  Criterion  of 
fundamental  importance.  All  men  regard  certain  apprehensions  as  false, 
others  as  possibly  or  probably  true,  and  others  as  having  undoubted 
certainty ;  while  others  exist  as  conscious  forms  of  absolute  knowledge. 
In  all  the  cases  first  named  we  are  conscious  of  the  possibility  of  error. 
In  reference  to  the  cases  last  designated,  we  know  that  misapprehension 
is  impossible.  Now,  when  we  meet  with  forms  of  knowledge  strictly 
common  to  all  minds  in  all  circumstances  of  conscious  existence,  forms 
which  are  always  characterized  by  this  absolutely  conscious  certainty,  we 
must  recognize  ourselves  as  in  the  presence  of  forms  of  absolute  truth,  or 
violate  all  the  principles  and  laws  of  inductive  science. 

6.  All  forms  of  knowledge,  we  remark  finally,  whose  validity  is 
necessarily  implied  by  forms  of  real  knowledge,  must  be  accepted  as 
having  absolute  validity.  The  intuitively  and  necessarily  implied  has, 
undeniably,  the  same  validity  as  that  by  which  the  former  is  implied. 

If  any  thinker  shall  admit  the  validity  of  these  Criteria,  or  that  of  any 
of  them,  he  must,  or  convict  himself  of  wanting  logical  integrity,  admit 
the  absolute  validity  of  all  forms  of  knowledge  undeniably  possessing 
these  characteristics.  If  he  should  deny  the  validity  of  these  Criteria,  he 
wiU  stand  revealed  as  being  as  obviously  convicted  of  fundamental  error 
as  these  Criteria  are  obviously  true.    A  man  may  in  words  deny  the 


A  CRIIICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


validity  of  the  axiom,  Things  equal  to  the  same  thing  are  equal  to  one 
another.  In  that  denial,  however,  he  is  as  obviously  wrong  as  that  axiom 
is  obviously  true.  Now  no  axiom  is,  or  can  be,  more  obviously  true  than 
are  the  above  Criteria.  If  the  Sceptic  shall  choose  to  confront,  with  a 
denial,  such  self-evident  truths,  the  world  may  very  wisely  and  properly 
'  leave  him  alone  in  his  glory.' 

Necessary  Deduction  from  a  Eigid  Application  op  these  Criteria. 
The  necessary  deduction  from  the  most  careful  and  rigid  application 
of  these  Criteria,  is  the  absolute  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  Matter  and 
Spirit,  Time  and  Space.  Let  us  now  carefully  apply  to  the  forms  of 
knowledge  under  consideration  the  Criteria  above  stated. 

1.  The  knowledge  which  we  have  of  each  of  these  realities  exists  in 
universal  mind  as  a  form  of  intuitive  knowledge  strictly  common  to  all  the 
race,  and  that  at  all  times,  and  in  all  ages,  and  under  all  circumstances  of 
conscious  existence.  Not  a  tribe  of  men,  as  we  have  said,  can  be  found 
who  have  not,  and  ever  have  not  had,  distinct  apprehensions  of  Matter 
and  Spirit,  Time  and  Space,  who  have  not  distinct  and  separate  terms  to 
represent  all  these  realities,  and  who  confound  any  one  of  them  with  any 
other.  Mind  cannot  and  never  did  and  never  could  think  at  all  without 
definitely  distinguishing  and  separating  between  the  self  and  the  not-self, 
the  me  and  the  not-me,  and  without  apprehending  these  realities,  not 
only  as  being  distinct  and  separate  from  one  another,  but  each  as  existing 
in  time  and  space.  Nor  in  the  interior  of  the  mind  is  there,  or  ever  was 
there  or  can  there  be,  a  shadow  of  doubt  about  the  distinct  and  separate 
existence  of  all  these  realities.  All  this,  as  we  have  shown  on  former 
occasions  in  the  progress  of  this  work,  philosophers  of  all  schools,  Sceptics 
among  the  rest,  fully  admit  and  affirm.  Nor  can  they,  as  they  themselves 
admit,  *  treat  this  faith,'  in  the  construction  of  their  system,  *  as  nothing 
but  a  prejudice,'  but  by  a  compulsory  assumption  of  wilL  While  they 
consent  to  be  guided  by  their  own  and  the  Universal  Intelligence,  they 
do  and  they  must,  as  they  themselves  acknowledge,  absolutely  believe  in 
the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  all  these  realities.  We  must,  then, 
admit  the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  aU  these  realities,  or  affirm,  and 
that  for  no  reason  but  will  assumption,  that  intuitive  knowledge,  strictly 
common  to  all  the  race,  and  that  under  all  circumstances  of  conscious 
existence,  is  a  blank  illusion. 

2.  These  forms  of  universal  intuitive  knowledge  which  we  have  of  all 
these  realities,  are  apprehended  by  universal  mind  as  necessarily  true. 
Time  and  space  we  not  only  know  to  be  realities  in  themselves,  but  also 
know  that  they  must  thus  exist.  In  other  words,  we  know  absolutely  that 
the  knowledge  we  have  of  these  realities,  not  only  is,  but  must  be  valid. 

So,  also,  we  necessarily  recognize  matter  and  spirit  as  realities  whose 


THE  SCEPTICAL  nilLOSOPHY.  311 

distinct  and  separate  existence  is  as  necessaiily  implied  by  their  attributes 
which  we  do,  and  must  know  to  be  real  The  axioms,  Events  imply  a 
cause,  and  Phenomena  substance,  are  false,  or  our  knowledge  of  matter 
and  spirit,  as  distinct  and  separate  entities,  must  be  valid.  All  admit 
that  we  do  really  know  the  phenomena,  or  attributes,  of  each  of  these 
substances.  Now,  phenomena  do  not  imply  substance,  and  substances, 
consequently,  are  not  as  their  essential  phenomena,  or  we  do  have  a  valid 
knowledge  of  matter  and  spirit,  as  realities  in  themselves,  and  as  distinct 
and  separate  entities.  If  the  Sceptic  denies  the  valiility  of  this  deduction, 
he  is  just  as  obviously  and  undeniably  wrong,  as  the  axioms.  Body  implies 
space.  Succession  implies  time.  Events  imply  a  cause.  Phenomena  imply 
substance,  and,  Things  equal  to  the  same  thing  are  equal  to  one  another, 
are  obviously  and  undeniably  true. 

3.  These  realities  are  ever  present  to  the  mind  as  the  objects  of  con- 
sciously direct  and  immediate  knowledge,  or  as  realities  whose  existence  is, 
by  direct  and  immediate  intuition,  implied  by  what  is  thus  known. 
Mind  is  ever  present  to  itself  as  the  direct,  immediate,  and  absolutely 
consciously  subject  of  thought,  feeling,  and  voluntary  determination. 
Matter,  in  its  secondary  qualities,  is  ever  present  to  universal  mind,  as  the 
unknown  came  of  known,  or  conscious,  states  of  Sensibility,  Sensations  ; 
while  in  its  primary  qualities,  as  extension  and  form,  it  is  equally  present 
as  the  consciously,  and  directly,  and  immediately  known  object  of  conscious 
states  of  the  Intelligence,  Sense-perception.  Time  and  space,  on  the 
other  hand,  are  present  as  realities  which  must  exist,  realities,  also,  whose 
existence  is  necessarily  implied  by  that  of  objects  of  consciously  direct 
and  immediate  knowledge.  No  philosopher  who  makes  any  pretensions 
to  integrity  will  deny  the  perfect  correctness  of  the  above  statements. 
'  The  problem  now  to  be  solved  is  this ' — Is  tlie  fact  of  knowledge  consciousli/ 
direct  and  immediate  to  be  regarded  as  a  valid  Criterion  of  truth?  The 
Sceptic  may  deny  this,  if  he  chooses. 

4.  The  knowledge  we  have  of  all  these  realities  has,  in  universal  mind, 
and  that  in  all  circumstances  and  relations  of  conscious  existence,  the 
characteristics  of  absolute  fixedness  and  immutability.  Every  individual  of 
the  race,  who  thinks  at  all,  as  we  have  often  said,  apprehends  the  self, 
the  mind,  as  a  self-conscious  personal  existence  endowed  with  the  attri- 
butes of  thought,  feeling,  and  willing ;  and  matter,  as  an  exterior  object 
existing  in  and  occupying  space,  and  consequently,  as  possessed  of  the 
fixed  qualities  of  extension  and  form,  and  time  and  space  as  the  places 
of  substances  and  events.  While  assumptions,  opinions,  beliefs,  conjec- 
tures, and  guesses,  appear  and  disappear  in  the  sphere  of  human  thought, 
while  they  change  their  forms  there,  and  take  on  the  appearance  of 
endlessly  'dissolving  views,'  the  apprehensions  under  consideration,  in 
the  forms  designated,  remain  in  universal  mind  as  fixed  and  immutable,  as 


312  J  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


are  any  of  our  ideas  of  any  mathematical  figures  whatever.  All  tliis  is 
just  as  true  with  the  Sceptic,  and  with  philosophers  of  all  schools,  as  with 
the  rest  of  mankind.  While  the  Sceptic  says  to  himself,  in  the  language 
of  the  Oriental  Yogee,  '  Neither  do  I  exist,  nor  anything  which  pertains 
to  myself ;  all  individual  existence  is  a  dream,'  an  illusion ;  phenomena 
only  are  real ;  while  our  philosopher  is  saying  all  this,  the  *  I,'  and  the 
'  not  I ' — that  is,  matter  and  spirit,  time  and  space,  are  just  as  real  to  him, 
and  just  the  same  as  they  were  before  he  began,  in  the  language  of  Kant, 
to  '  play  tricks  upon  Reason.'  When  the  Pure  Idealist  is  endeavouring 
to  demonstrate  to  himself,  and  to  all  the  world,  that  nothing  but  thought 
is  real,  he  is  ever  present  to  himself,  not  as  a  form  of  thcmght,  but  as  a 
great  and  substantial  thinker,  and  the  inquiry  is  perpetually  before  his 
mind,  What  will  real  thinkers  think  of  this  ?  Without  a  violation  of  all 
the  principles  and  laws  of  scientific  classification  and  induction,  we 
cannot  confound  these  fundamental  apprehensions  with  changeable  as- 
sumptions, opinions,  beliefs,  and  conjectures,  nor  locate  them  anywhere 
else  but  within  the  sphere  of  real  knowledge. 

5.  The  apprehensions  which  we  have  of  the  realities  under  considera- 
tion exist  in  all  minds,  under  all  circumstances  of  conscious  existence,  as 
conscious  forms  of  real^  and  absolutely  certain  knowledge.  We  do  not 
opine,  imagine,  conjecture,  or  guess,  that  we  exist.  We  know  it.  In  the 
same  form,  we  consciously  know  that  matter  is  before  us,  as  an  exterior 
object,  having  real  extension  and  form.  We  also  know  space  and  time,  as 
necessarily  existing  realities.  There  is  not  on  earth  a  mind  possessed  of 
Reason  in  which  the  apprehensions  under  consideration  do  not  exist  in 
this  one  exclusive  form.  This  conscious  certainty,  also,  is  just  as  absolute 
in  the  mind  of  philosophers  of  all  schools,  as  in  that  of  any  other  indi- 
vidual. They  may,  if  they  choose,  '  compel  themselves  to  treat  this  faith 
as  nothing  but  a  prejudice.'  Yet  they  can,  by  no  possibility,  force  into 
the  sphere  of  real  thought  the  appearance  even  of  real  doubt  of  the 
certainty  of  our  knowledge  of  '  the  me  and  the  not-me,'  or  of  time  and 
space.  We  have,  by  a  forced  assumption  of  will,  to  '  put  ourselves  into  a 
state  of  rwl  knowing,  when  we  begin  to  philosophize,'  or  we  cannot  even 
treat  as  illusions  our  knowledge  of  these  realities.  Knowledge,  then,  is 
not  knowledge,  or  our  knowledge  of  the  essential  nature  and  attributes  of 
matter  and  spirit,  time  and  space,  has  absolutely  certain  validity, 

6.  Matter  and  spirit,  time  and  space,  we  remark  finally,  stand  revealed 
in  the  Universal  Intelligence  as  realities  whose  existence  is  necessarily 
implied  by  fundamental  facts  of  absolutely  conscious  knowledge.  Pheno- 
mena, as  conscious  facts  of  external  perception,  all  men,  and  philosophers 
of  all  schools,  admit  and  affirm  to  be  real.  If  the  axioms.  Body  implies 
space.  Succession  implies  time.  Events  imply  a  cause,  Phenomena  imply 
substance,  and  Things  equal  to  the  same  thing  are  equal  to  one  auotlier, 


THE  SCEPTICAL  PHILOSOPHY.  313 


are  true,  then  our  knowledge  of  mind  and  matter,  time  and  space,  have 
undeniable  validity.  The  Sceptic  can  deny  this  deduction  but  by  deny- 
ing the  reality  of  conscious  facts  which  all  admit  on  the  one  hand,  or  the 
validity  of  the  above  axioms  on  the  other.  In  the  one  case,  he  is  just 
as  obviously  and  undeniably  wrong  as  universally  admitted  conscious  facts 
are  real.  In  the  other  case,  he  is  just  as  obviously  and  undeniably  in  fundar 
mental  error  as  the  above  self-evident  axioms  and  principles  of  all  science 
are  of  obvious  and  undeniable  validity.  In  the  light,  therefore,  of  six 
undeniably  valid  Criteria  of  real  knowledge,  the  deduction  takes  on  the 
form  of  demonstrated  certainty,  that  we  have  a  scientifically  ascertained 
valid  knowledge  of  these  four  realities.  The  Sceptical  Philosophy  can, 
by  no  possibility,  be  true,  unless  all  the  above  desiguated  Criteria,  together 
with  edl  the  axioms  ia  all  the  sciences,  are  false. 

The  Sceptical  Doctrine  Self-contradictory. 
Mr.  Lewes  presents  a  formal  argument  to  prove  the  doctrine  that  we 
have  no  Criterion  of  truth.  In  this  he  follows  the  example  of  all  who 
belong  to  his  schooL  What  is  the  principle  which  lies  at  the  basis  of 
his  whole  argument?  It  is  undeniably  this.  Doctrines  of  a  certain 
character,  the  absence  of  all  valid  Criteria  of  truth,  for  example,  may  be 
absolutely  verified  by  argument  In  other  words,  we  can  know,  and  can 
know  that  we  do  know,  certain  propositions  to  be  true.  How  can  this 
be  so,  in  the  utter  absence  of  all  Criteria  by  which  we  can  distinguish 
between  valid  and  invalid  arguments,  and  between  what  judgments  are 
true  and  what  false  ?  Why  do  Mr.  Lewes  and  his  school  regard  his 
argument  as  valid  for  truth  ?  For  this  reason  exclusively.  It  induces 
in  their  minds  a  certain  form  of  conviction  represented  by  the  term 
conscious  certitude.  When  an  argument  induces  in  all  minds  an  absolute 
certitude  of  its  validity,  they  hold  that  argument  as  valid  for  the  truth  of 
the  deduction  reached.  Universal  and  absolute  cpnscious  certitude,  then, 
is,  with  them  even,  as  it  should  be,  a  valid  Criterion  of  truth.  Were 
this  not  so,  it  would  be  absurd  for  them  to  attempt  to  verify  their  own 
doctrine.  The  proof  they  offer  is  proof  absolute  that  they  themselves 
do  not  believe  their  own  doctrine.  If  universal  and  absolute  conscious 
certitude  is  a  test  of  truth,  and  it  is  so,  or  the  attempt  to  prove  anything 
is  absurd,  then,  as  above  demonstrated,  we  have  an  absolute  valid  know- 
ledge of  spirit,  matter,  time,  and  space. 

The  Sceptical  Distinction  between  Phenomena  and  Noumbna. 

Sceptics  of  all  ages  make  a  fundamental  distinction  between  pheno- 
mena and  noumena.  The  former  they  define  as  '  the  appeamnce  of 
things,'  or  '  modifications  of  the  soul'  Noumena,  on  the  other  hand,  are 
ttie  realities  themselves,  existences  in  se.     It  is  very  important  that  we 


314  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF PHILOSOrilY. 

clearly  and  fully  understand  the  Sceptical  doctrine  in  regard  to  llie 
relations  of  pheuouieaa  to  noumena,  and  those  of  our  Intelligence  to  each 
class  of  objects.  The  following  are  the  essential  elements  and  features  of 
this  doctrine,  to  wit :  1.  We  do  know  phenomena,  but  can  know  nothing 
whatever  of  noumena.  *  Our  knowledge,'  says  Mr.  Lewes,  '  is  the  know- 
ledge of  phenomena,  and  not  at  all  of  noumena,  because  we  only  know 
things  as  they  appear  to  us,  and  not  as  they  really  are ;  all  attempts  to 
penetrate  the  mystery  of  Existence  must  be  vain,  for  the  attempt  can 
only  be  made  on  appearances.'  After  defining  phenomena  as  mere 
*  appearances  of  things,'  *  modifications  of  the  soul,'  IMr.  Spencer  sets  forth 
this  formula,  as  embodying  not  only  his  own,  but  the  doctrine  of  all 
philosophers  of  his  school, '  from  Protagoras  to  Kant,'  namely,  *  the  reality 
existing  behind  all  appearances  is,  and  ever  must  be,  unknown.'  2.  While 
there  can  be  no  real  knowledge  of  realities,  noumena,  there  may  be  a  real 
science  of  phenomena.  'Although  absolute  truth  is  not  attainable  by 
man,  although  there  cannot  be  a  science  of  Being,  there  can  be  a  science 
of  appearances.  Phenomena,  they '  (sceptics)  '  admit,  are  true  as  pheno- 
mena. What  we  have  to  do  is,  therefore,  to  observe  and  classify  pheno- 
mena.' In  the  above  presentation  Mr.  Lewes  has  most  accurately,  as  all 
■will  admit,  stated  the  doctrine  of  Scepticism  as  avowed  by  its  advocates 
in  all  ages.  3.  While  we  cannot  have  any  science  of  real  Being,  we 
can  not  only  know  and  classify  phenomena,  but  determine  their  mutual 
relationships  and  laws,  their  co-existences  and  sequences.  '  What  we  have 
to  do,'  says  Mr.  Lewes,  *  is  therefore  to  observe  and  classify  phenomena  ; 
to  trace  in  them  the  resemblances  of  co-existence  and  succession  ;  to  trace 
the  connection  of  cause  and  eff'ect ;  and,  having  done  this,  we  shall  have 
founded  a  science  of  Appearances  adequate  to  our  wants.'  'Fact' 
(phenomena)  '  I  know,'  says  Mr.  Huxley,  *  and  Law  I  know.'  4.  The 
reason  why  we  can  have  no  science  of  Being,  noumena,  is  the  fact  that  we 
have  no  Criterion  of  truth.  '  The  stronghold  of  Scepticisn),'  says  Mr. 
Lewes,  'is  impregnable.  It  is  this:  There  is  no  Criterion  of  truth.' 
This  is,  and  ever  has  been,  the  fundamental  deduction  of  Scepticism. 
'  Phenomena  are  the  appearances  of  things.  But  where  exists  the! 
Criterion  of  the  truth  of  these  appearances  V  Such  are  the  positive 
teachings  of  Scepticism  in  regard  to  the  relations  of  phenomena  and 
noumena  as  real  Being.  To  the  following  observations  upon  these  dogmas 
we  would  invite  very  special  attention. 

Observations  upon  the  Sceptical  Doctrine  on  these  Subjects. 

1.  According  to  the  fundamental  doctrine  and  principles  of  Scepticism, 
we  have  no  more  real  knowledge,  and  can  have  no  more  real  science  of 
phenomena  than  of  noumena,  or  real  Being.  We  cannot  have  knowledge, 
or  science,  of  substances  or  causes,  says  the  Sceptic,  *  because  we  have  no 


THE  SCEPTICAL  PHILOSOFHY.  315 

Criterion  of  truth.'  On  the  authority  of  what  Criterion,  then,  do  you  afl&rm 
that '  you  know  Phenomena  V  '  The  Criterion,'  you  say,  '  must  reside  either 
in  Reason,  in  Conception,  or  in  Sensation,'  and  you  have  demonstrated  that 
this  Criterion  cannot  be  found  in  either  of  these  faculties,  and  have  hence 
inferred  that  we  have  no  Criterion  whatever  of  truth  in  any  form.  You 
are  absolutely  necessitated,  therefore,  by  your  own  principle,  to  affirm, 
with  the  Pyrrhonists,  that  you  do  not  know  that  you  know,  not  merely 
Being  in  se,  but  Phenomena  also.  You  are  bound,  by  all  the  principles 
of  logical  integrity,  to  affi.rm  that  there  can  be  no  more  real  knowledge  or 
science  of  Phenomena  than  there  can  be  of  Noumena,  and  that  in  the  same 
sense  in  which  knowledge  and  science  in  one  form  is  impossible,  it  is 
equally  so  in  the  other. 

The  universal  boast  of  Sceptics  is  that  they  can,  and  do  know  Pheno- 
mena, and  can,  and  do  know  Law ;  but  that  they  do  not,  and  cannot 
know  Substances  and  Causes.  Now  Law  is  just  as  invisible,  and  in  the 
same  identical  sense  invisible,  as  are  Substances  and  Causea  Phenomena 
imply  Substances  and  Causes  in  the  same  sense  in  which  they  imply  Law. 
La  the  same  identical  sense  in  which  we  perceive  Law,  we  perceive  also 
Substances  and  Causes  in  Phenomena.  In  the  same  sense  and  form  in 
which  we  perceive  or  know  Phenomena,  we  perceive  and  know  Substances 
and  Causes  in  and  through  Phenomena.  By  the  same  identical  Criteria 
by  which  we  know  that  we  have  a  valid  knowledge  of  Phenomena,  we 
know  also  that  we  have  an  equally  valid  knowledge  of  Law,  Stibstances, 
and  Causes.  Necessarily  implied  knowledge  has,  undeniably,  the  same 
validity  as  that  by  which  the  former  is  implied. 

2.  In  the  Sceptical  Philosophy  we  have  a  fundamentally  false  idea  and 
definition  of  Phenomena.  They  are  affirmed  to  be  '  modifications  of  the 
soul.'  Modifications  of  the  soul  are  Phenomena  of  the  soul  and  of  no  other 
substance.  Phenomena  of  matter,  on  the  other  hand,  are  qualities  or 
properties  of  this  substance  ;  qualities  or  properties  perceived  by  the  soul, 
or  the  Intelligence.  So  the  term  Phenomena  is  regarded  by  the  universal 
Intelligence,  and  defined  by  all  standard  authorities.  Nowhere  but 
amid  the  illusions  of  false  science  are  the  Phenomena  of  one  substance 
defined  as  modifications  of  another  substance.  The  secondary  qualities 
of  matter  are  not  modifications  of  the  soul,  Sensations,  but  causes  of  such 
modifications,  that  is,  qualities  of  the  exterior,  material,  substance.  The 
primary  qualities  are  never  conceived,  or  defined,  as  in  any  sense  *  modi- 
fications of  the  soul,'  but  as  qualities  or  properties  of  matter,  qualities  or 
properties  directly  and  immediately  perceived  by  the  mind.  The  only 
proper  definition  of  Phenomena  is  the  properties,  or  qualities,  of  sub- 
stances perceived  by  the  mind.  Qualities  in  themselves  constitute  the 
real  nature  of  substances.  Qualities,  when  perceived,  are  c<vlled  the 
Phenomena  of  said  substancea 


3i6  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

3.  Hence,  we  remark  in  the  next  place,  that  there  is  no  such  distinc- 
tion as  the  Sceptical  Philosophy  affirms  to  exist  between  Phenomena 
and  Koumena.  Phenomena,  we  repeat,  are  the  real  qualities,  or  pro- 
perties, of  substances,  qualities  or  properties  perceived  by  the  mind. 
Phenomena  and  Noumena,  God.  and  2^ature,  and.  the  Universal  Intelli- 
gence, have  immutably  '  joined  together,'  and  false  science  can,  by  no 
possibility,  'put  them  asunder.'  The  idea  of  appearance  in  which 
nothing  appears,  that  is,  Phenomena  in  which  no  substance-s  are  revealed, 
is  admitted  by  Kant  to  involve  an  absolute  absurdity.  If  in  Phenomena 
substances  are  represented  as  they  are  not,  and  not  as  they  are,  they  are 
not  manifested  at  all,  and  we  have  appearance  in  which  nothing  appears. 
Appearance  in  which  no  reality  appears,  this  is  the  sum  and  substance  of 
the  Sceptical  Philosophy. 

4.  The  Sceptical  Philosophy,  we  remark  again,  involves  a  funda- 
mental psychological  error.  Phenomena,  even  of  matter,  are,  according 
to  its  teachings,  consciously  given  as  *  modifications  of  the  soul.'  On  no 
other  hypothesis  can  they  be  affirmed  to  be  such  moditications.  Hero 
we  have  one  of  the  most  obvious  errors  in  psychology,  errors  known  to 
science.  No  rational  being  but  a  bewildered  philosopher  ever  imagined 
Phenomena  to  be  anything  else  than  perceived  qualities  of  some  definite 
substance. 

5.  The  last,  and  one  of  the  greatest  absurdities  that  we  shall  notice  as 
connected  with  these  dogmas  of  Scepticism,  is  found  in  its  admission  of 
the  reality  of  Phenomena,  and  of  our  knowledge  of  the  same,  and  a  denial 
of  the  validity  of  forms  of  knowledge  whose  validity  is  absolutely  im- 
plied by  what  Sceptics  themselves  admit  and  affirm  that  we  do  know. 
Phenomena  are  real,  says  the  Sceptic  in  common  with  all  the  race,  and 
■we  have  a  valid  knowledge  of  Phenomena.  Let  him  admit  every  form  of 
truth  which  admitted  Phenomena  imply,  and  neither  himself  nor  any 
other  rational  being  can  be  a  Sceptic.  We  cannot  be  more  certain  of  the 
reality  of  Phenomena  than  we  are,  and  must  be,  of  the  absolute  validity 
of  the  principle,  that  Phenomena  imply  substance,  or  real  being,  and  that 
substances  must  be  in  themselves  as  their  essential  Phenomena.  We 
cannot  be  more  assured  of  the  fact  that  events  are  real,  than  we  are  of 
the  validity  of  the  principle  that  events  imply  a  cause.  We  cannot  be 
more  assured  of  the  fact  that  we  know  Phenomena  and  events,  than  we 
are  and  must  be,  that  through  these  we  do  know  substances  and  causes. 
We  cannot  be  more  assured  that  we  really  know  Phenomena  and  events, 
Bubstances  and  causes,  than  we  are,  and  must  bo,  that  we  know  their 
implied  realities,  time  and  space.  There  can  be  no  more  fundamental 
form  of  error  than  is  involved  in  the  idea,  that  we  can,  and  do  know 
Phenomena  and  events,  and  do  not  and  cannot  know  the  substances, 
causes,  and  realities,  the  existence  and  character  of  which  are  absolutely 


THE  SCEPTICAL  PHILOSOniY.  317 

and  necessarily  implied  by  what  it  is  admitted  and  ai&imed  we  can,  and 
do  know. 

PosiTiVB  Sides  op  the  Sceptical  Philosopht. 
While  Scepticism  has  to  appearance  none  but  merely  negative  sides, 
it  is,  when  carefully  considered,  as  manifestly  as  any  other  a  positive 
system,  and  has  as  many  positive  sides  as  any  other  hypothesis.  It  bases 
all  its  deductions,  for  example,  upon  the  absolutely  affirmed  facts,  that  we 
have,  and  can  have,  no  Criterion  of  truth  ;  that  while  we  do,  and  can  have 
no  knowledge  whatever  of  real  substances  and  causes,  we  can,  and  do 
have  valid  knowledge  of  Phenomena  and  Law ;  that  the  Phenomena  which 
we  do  know  are  not  qualities,  or  properties,  of  objects  perceived  by  the 
mind,  but  'modifications  of  the  soul;'  that  these  modifications  validly 
represent  no  realities  whatever,  and  that  while  we  can,  and  do  have  a 
valid  knowledge  of  these  modifications,  that  is,  of  Phenomena,  we  can 
have  no  real  knowledge  of  the  substances,  causes,  and  other  realities, 
whose  existence  and  character  are  given  in  the  Universal  Intelligence,  as 
necessarily  implied  by  Phenomena  of  which  even  Scepticism  itself  admits 
and  affirms  that  we  do  have  a  valid  knowledge.  These,  among  others, 
constitute  the  positive  sides  of  this  Philosophy,  and  all  these  principles 
must  be  true,  or  Scepticism  must  be  a  system  of  fundamental  error.  Let 
as  now  consider  some  of  the  necessary  deductions  which  arise  from  these, 
the  known  basis  principles  of  this  system. 

Necessary  Deductions  from  Fundamental  Principles  op  this 

System. 

1.  All  these  principles  in  common  are,  in  fact,  nothing  but  bald 
assumptions,  which  have  no  self-evident  validity,  which  have  no  ante- 
cedent or  deductive  probability  in  their  favour,  and  can  by  no  possibility 
be  verified  by  proof.  Is  it  self-evident,  for  example,  that  we  have  no 
Criterion  of  truth — that  the  Phenomena  which  we  consciously  perceive  as 
qualities  of  a  not-self,  are  mere  modifications  of  the  self — that  realities  are 
not  what  we  consciously  perceive  them  to  be,  and  that  we  can  know 
Phenomena  and  Law,  and  cannot  know  the  substances,  causes,  and  realities 
whose  existence  and  character  are  given  in  the  Universal  Intelligence  as 
necessarily  implied  by  Phenomena  which  we  undeniably  do  know  ?  By 
what  process  of  induction,  or  deduction,  can  it  be  shown  that  these 
Sceptical  principles  have  any  antecedent  probability  in  their  favour  1  It 
is,  undeniably,  just  as  antecedently  probable,  and  infinitely  more  so,  that 
realities  are,  as  that  they  are  not,  what  we  directly  and  immediately 
perceive  them  to  be.  Nor,  by  any  actual  or  conceivable  process  of  induc- 
tion, can  the  Sceptical  hypothesis  be  proven  true,  and  its  opposite  IhIpp. 
By  what  process  of  reasoning  can  the  Sceptic  render  us  more  absuiutely 


3i8  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PIULOSOPHY. 

or  rationally  assured  that  we  do  not,  than  we  are  that  we  do,  exist  as 
personal  beings  exercising  the  functions  of  thought,  feeling,  and  free 
determination?  How  can  he  render  us  more  absolutely  and  rationally 
certain  that  matter  is  not,  than  we  actually  are  that  it  is  directly  and 
immediately  before  us  as  possessed  of  the  real  qualities  of  extension  and 
form  ?  How  can  he  render  us  more  rationally  and  assuredly  certain  that 
such  axioms  as  the  following  are  false,  than  we  are  that  they  are  and 
must  be  true,  namely,  that  Body  implies  space  ;  Succession  implies  time ; 
Phenomena  imply  substance ;  Events  imply  a  cause,  and  that  Substances 
must  be  as  their  essential  Plienomena  ?  Unless  the  Sceptic  shall 
demonstrate  all  the  above  propositions,  his  hypothesis,  undeniably, 
stands  before  us  as  a  mere  bald  and  lawless  assumption — what  he  can  no 
more  accomplish  than  he  can  prove  to  us  that  2  +  15  =  6. 

2.  The  Sceptical  Philosophy  is  not  only  based  upon  a  mere  assumption, 
but  upon  an  assumption  which  is  most  palpably  self-contradictory  and 
absurd.  On  the  assumption  that  we  have  no  Criterion  of  truth,  the  deduc- 
tion is  based  that  we  cannot  have  valid  knowledge  of  truth  in  any  form. 
Notwithstanding  the  want  of  such  Criterion,  and  in  the  face  of  the 
universal  deduction  based  upon  that  want,  we  are  absolutely  assured  that 
we  do  have  a  valid  knowledge  of  Phenomena  and  even  of  Law.  Now  if, 
in  the  absence  of  such  Criterion,  we  do  and  can  have  rationally  self- 
assured  knowledge  of  Phenomena  and  Law,  we  may,  notwithstanding  the 
want  of  such  test,  have  an  equally  absolute  and  rationally  self-assured 
knowledge  of  the  substances  and  causes,  the  existence  and  character  of 
which  are  necessarily  implied  by  Phenomena  which  we  do  know.  If  the 
want  of  Criteria  proves  the  fact  that  we  can  have  no  valid  knowledge  of 
substances,  this  want  is  equal  proof  of  the  invalidity  of  our  knowledge  of 
Phenomena  and  Law. 

3.  Scepticism  in  its  fundamental  principles  and  deductions  involves 
the  absurdity  of  making  a  discrimination  where,  undeniably,  no  difference 
exists.  *  I  know  Fact,  and  I  know  Law,'  says  the  Sceptic.  Eeal  know- 
ledge then,  in  some  form,  does  exist.  This  all  Sceptics  admit.  If  they 
doubt  everything  else,  they  do  not  and  cannot  doubt  that  they  doubt. 
Now  there  is  nothing  of  which  we  can  be  more  certain  tham  we  are  of 
our  own  personal  existence,  of  the  reality  of  matter  as  possessed  of 
extension  and  form,  and  of  the  existence  of  time  and  space.  Scepticism 
assumes  one  form  of  knowledge  to  be  really  valid,  and  then  affirms  that 
another  form  which  has,  undeniably,  the  same  kind  and  degree  of 
certainty,  to  be  utterly  illusory,  thus  making  a  fundamental  discrimina- 
tion, where,  most  obviously,  no  difference  whatever  does  exist.  If  we 
admit,  as  all  Sceptics  do,  that  one  form  of  consciously  certain  knowledge 
is  valid,  we  convict  ourselves  of  the  grossest  logical  insincerity  if  we  deny 
the  validity  of  any  other  form  of  knowledge  undeniably  possessed  of  the 


THE  SCEPTICAL  PHILOSOPHY.  319 

same  kind  and  degree  of  certainty.  We  cannot  be  more  certain  that  we 
know  Fact  and  Law,  that  we  know  Phenomena,  and  that  we  have  doubts, 
than  we  are  that  we  know  'the  self  and  the  not-self,'  and  time  and  space, 
as  realities  in  themselves.  To  affirm  that  we  do  know  Fact  and  Law,  and 
that  we  do  not  know  '  the  me  and  the  not  me,'  is  simply  to  convict  our- 
selves of  the  most  palpable  self-contradiction  and  absurdity. 

4.  This  hypothesis  has  its  basis  not  only  in  the  error  of  making  a  dis- 
crimination where  no  diflFerence  exists,  but  in  other  equally  fundamental 
forms,  that  of  confounding  things  that  essentially  differ  from  one  another. 
Knowledge  through  Sense-perception,  it  is  argued,  cannot  be  valid, 
because  '  the  Senses  are  deceptive,  and  there  is  no  perception  which  cannot 
be  false.'  In  two  fundamental  respects,  the  Sceptical  deduction  is  based 
upon  the  error  of  confounding  things  which  fundamentally  differ — con- 
founding Sensation  considered  as  a  sensitive  state,  and  Sense-perception 
considered  as  an  intellectual  state,  on  the  one  hand  ;  and  confounding  the 
real  fact  of  Sense-perception  with  the  assumptions,  opinions,  beliefs,  con- 
jectures, and  guesses  which  are  based  upon  such  facts. 

In  all  the  writings  of  Sceptics  upon  the  suhject  we  search  in  vain  for 
any  proper  discrimination  between  the  primary  and  secondary  qualities  (»f 
matter,  and  between  the  forms  of  knowledge  which  we  obtain  of  this 
substance  indirectly  through  the  consciousness  of  sensations,  and  directly 
through  consciously  presentative  perception.  To  know  a  substance  as  it 
consciously  affects  our  sensitivity,  is  one  thing ;  to  know  its  essential 
qualities,  as  extension  «ind  form,  by  perception  consciously  direct  and 
immediate,  is  quite  another.  Scepticism  universally  confounds  these 
fundamentally  diverse  forms  of  knowledge  with  each  other,  and  bases  its 
deduction  upon  the  assumed  identity  of  things  which  essentially  differ 
from  one  another,  and  thus  finally  convicts  itself  of  fundamental  error. 

Again,  it  is  argued  that  '  the  senses  are  deceptive,'  because  men  differ 
and  contradict  each  other  about  the  same  things.  Facts,  it  should  be 
borne  in  mind,  are  one  thing;  while  assumptions,  opinions,  and  con- 
jectures based  upon  such  facts  are  quite  another.  As  far  as  facts  of  actual 
perception,  external  and  internal,  and  the  intuitive  convictions  directly, 
immediately,  and  necessarily,  connected  with  such  facts  are  concerned, 
men  do  not  differ  at  all.  All  are  conscious  of  themselves  as  exercising 
the  functions  of  thought,  feeling,  and  willing,  of  matter  as  an  exterior 
substance  having  extension  and  form,  and  of  time  and  space  as  realitiep, 
whose  existence  is  necessarily  implied  by  conscious  facts,  and  all  in 
common  intuitively  believe  in  the  reality  of  matter,  and  spirit,  time  and 
space.  So  far  all  men  agree,  and  here  we  have  facts  of  actual  perception, 
and  intuitive  convictions  directly,  immediately,  and  necessarily  con- 
nected with  such  facts.  Here,  also,  we  have  all  that  the  Senses  and 
other  primary  faculties  give  us,  and  here  we  axe  never  deceived  at  all. 


3=o  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


Outside  of  these  perceptions  and  convictions  in  respect  to  whicli  all  men 
do,  and  must,  agree,  and  in  respect  to  which  we  are  not,  and  cannot,  be 
deceived — outside  of  these  intuitive  perceptions  and  convictions,  and  based 
upon  the  same,  we  say,  we  meet  with  conflicting  and  contradictory 
assumptions,  beliefs,  opinions,  conjectures,  and  guesses,  in  which  there  is 
a  '  confusion  worse  confounded,'  of  error  and  truth.  The  reason  is,  that 
in  this  last-named  sphere  we  have  convictions  of  the  Intelligence  inter- 
mingled with  sentiments  of  Will  and  of  the  Sensitivity.  Now  Sceptics 
confound  these  assumptions  and  opinions,  etc.,  with  actual  facts  of  real 
perception,  and  with  the  intuitive  convictions  immediately  and  necessarily 
connected  with  these  facts  and  convictions,  and  hence  conclude  that  the 
•  Senses  are  deceptive,'  a  fundamental  error  in  science.  In  actual  percep- 
tion, we  repeat,  and  in  the  intuitive  convictions  directly  and  necessarily 
connected  with  the  facts  thus  given,  error  is  impossible,  and  here  men  do 
not,  and  cannot,  differ.  The  confounding  of  forms  of  knowledge,  con- 
sciously indirect  and  mediate,  with  those  as  consciously  direct  and  imme- 
diate on  the  one  hand,  and  facts  of  real  perception  and  truths  of  actual 
intuition  which  must  be  true,  with  assumptions,  opinions,  beliefs,  con- 
jectures, and  guesses  which  may  or  may  not  be  true — here  we  meet  with 
the  fundamental  errors  of  the  Sceptical  Philosophy. 

4.  "While  we  remark,  finally,  the  Sceptical  Philosophy  is  not  self- 
evidently  true,  while  it  has  no  antecedent  probability  in  its  favour,  and 
cannot  be  verified  as  really,  or  even  probably,  true,  it  may  be  demonstrated 
to  be  a  system  of  fundamental  error.  This  hypothesis  is  just  as  obviously 
and  undeniably  false  as  the  fundamental  axioms  in  all  the  valid  sciences 
are  obviously  and  undeniably  true.  No  axiom  in  any  science  can  be 
more  eelf-evidently  and  necessarily  true  than  are  those  to  which  we  have 
80  often  referred — to  wit.  Body  implies  space,  Succession  implies  time. 
Phenomena  imply  substance.  Events  imply  a  cause,  and  Substances  are, 
in  themselves,  as  their  essential  Phenomena.  Take  the  Phenomena  which 
Sceptics  admit  to  be  validly  known,  take  these  Phenomena  just  as  given 
in  the  universal  consciousness,  and  no  deduction  in  any  science  can  be 
rendered  more  demonstrably  evident  than  may  that  of  the  validity  of  our 
knowledge  of  spirit  and  matter,  and  time  and  space.  Scepticism  is 
just  as  undeniably  and  obviously  false,  as  these  principles  are  self-evidently 
and  necessarily  true.  We  either  do  not  know  Phenomena  as  given  in  the 
universal  consciousness,  or  we  do  know  matter  and  spirit,  and  time  and 
space,  as  realities  in  themselves.  We  must  either  admit  and  affirm,  that 
known  facts  imply  nothing,  or  admit  and  affirm  that  the  facts  which  we 
do  know  imply  the  existence  of  all  the  realities  under  consideration.  If 
thought,  for  example,  implies  a  thinker,  we  exist  as  thinkers.  If  you 
deny  this  principle,  you  are  as  obviously  and  necessarily  wrong,  as  this 
principle  is  obviously  and  necessarily  true.     You  must  deny,  that  w© 


THE  SCEPTICAL  PHILOSOPHY.  321 

think  and  feel,  and  will,  at  all,  or  admit  that  we  exist  as  self-conscious 
personalities  possessed  of  the  powers  of  thought,  feeling,  and  willing.  If 
the  qualities  of  extension  and  form  imply  the  existence  of  a  material  sub- 
stance,  then  matter  exists  as  such  a  substance.  If  you  deny  the  validity 
of  the  principle,  you  are  as  obviously  and  necessarily  wrong  as  this 
principle  is  obviously  and  necesv«;arily  true.  If  you  deny  the  existence  of 
such  qualities,  you  are  as  obviously  and  absolutely  wrong,  as  knowledge 
consciously  distinct,  direct,  and  immediate,  is  obviously  and  absolutely 
true.  Scepticism  cannot  be  true  unless  all  the  axioms  in  all  the  sciences 
are  false,  and  the  universal  consciousness  is  'a  liar  from  the  beginning.' 
We  are  now  fully  prepared  to  enter  upon  the  consideration  of  the  system 
■which  arose  during  the  period  denominated  '  the  Decline  of  the  Grecian 
Philosophy.' 

DECLINE  OF  THE  GEECIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 
SECTION  L 

THE  PYERHONISTS. 

Ptrbho  of  Elis  (about  360 — 270  ac.)  was  the  founder  of  the  Sceptical 
school  in  Philosophy  which  bore  his  name.  As  the  founder  of  this 
school  left  no  writings  which  have  descended  to  us,  and  as  we  have  to  do 
with  systems  rather  than  with  men,  we  shall  set  forth  the  doctrines  of 
this  school  as  interpreted  by  its  leading  advocates,  such  as  Tiraon  of 
Philus,  and  Sextus  Erapiricus.  The  fundamental  doctrine  of  the  school 
was  universal  and  absolute  doubt.  "We  assert  nothing,  was  their  avowed 
maxim,  not  even  that  we  do  not  assert  anything.  *  Nothing  is  certain  of 
itself,  as  is  proved  by  the  discrepancy  of  opinions  concerning  all  that  is 
perceptible  or  thinkable ;  and  therefore  nothing  can  be  made  certain  by 
proof,  since  the  latter  derives  no  certainty  from  itself,  and  if  based  on 
other  proof  leads  us  either  to  a  regressus  in  infinitum,  or  to  a  circle  in 
demonstration.'  The  following  is  their  argument  in  refutation  of  the 
principle  that  every  event  must  have  a  cause.  *  A  cause  is  a  relativum, 
for  it  is  not  to  be  conceived  without  that  which  it  causes ;  but  the  rela- 
tive has  no  existence  except  in  thought.  Further,  in  each  case  cause  and 
effect  must  be  either  synchronous,  or  the  former  must  precede  or  follow 
the  latter.  They  cannot  be  synchronous,  for  then  cause  and  effect  would 
as  such  be  undistinguishable,  and  each  could  with  equal  reason  be  claimed 
as  the  cause  of  the  other.  Nor  can  the  cause  precede  the  effect,  since  a 
cause  is  no  cause  until  that  exists  of  which  it  is  the  cause.  Lastly,  the 
supposition  that  a  cause  follows  its  effect  is  without  sense,  and  may  be 
abandoned  to  those  fools  who  habitually  invert  the  order  of  things.' 
*  Every  syllogism,'  says  Sextus  Empiricus,  'muvtis  in  a  ciicle,  since  the 

21 


322  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

major  premise,  on  which  the  proof  of  the  conclusion  depends,  depends 
for  its  own  certainty  on  a  complete  induction,  in  which  the  conclusion 
must  have  been  contrived.'*  On  the  above  dogmas  and  reasoning  we 
remark : 

1.  We  have  here  a  most  palpable  example  of  the  self-contradictory  and 
absurd.  Absolute  proof  is  professedly  presented  that  proof  in  all  forms, 
actual  and  conceivable,  is  utterly  impossible ;  just  as  if  we  can  demon- 
strate the  absolute  impossibility  of  demonstration  in  any  and  in  every 
form.  Mr.  Mill  here  finds  himself  anticipated  in  his  famous  argument 
in  which,  according  to  his  own  reasoning,  he  hegs  the  deduction  that  all 
deduction  involves  the  vicious  error  of  petitio  princi2)ii.  How  can  the 
doctrine  that  all  proof  in  every  form  is  impossible  be  proven  ?  If  we 
cannot  attain  to  certain  knowledge  on  any  subject,  how  can  we  know 
that  all,  or  any,  opinions  are  deceptive  t 

2.  "We  have  also  in  the  above  expositions  and  deductions  the  vicious 
error  of  drawing  universal  conclusions  from  a  partial  induction  of  facts. 
*  Opinions,'  we  are  told,  *  concerning  all  that  is  perceptible,  or  thinkable,' 
are  discrepant.  In  regard  to  what  is  most  essential  concerning  '  things 
perceptible  and  thinkable,'  all  mankind,  as  we  have  absolutely  evinced, 
perfectly  agree.  All  have  common  and  identical  ideas  and  convictions  in 
regard  to  matter  and  spirit,  time  and  space.  Tliese  ideas  and  convic- 
tions, even  sceptics  admit,  are  'innate  and  connatural,'  'unavoidable  and 
irradicable,'  and  *  remain  proof  against  all  attempts  to  remove  them  by 
grounds  and  arguments.'  Nor  do  the  points  of  real  disagreement  among 
mankind,  assumptions  excepted,  have  any  bearings  whatever  in  the  sphere 
of  the  Science  of  Being,  Leaving  out  all  assumptions,  we  have  only  to 
adduce  those  necessary  ideas  and  intuitive  convictions,  strictly  common 
to  the  race,  to  verify  absolutely  the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  Matter, 
Spirit,  Time,  Space,  God,  Duty,  Immortality,  and  Iletribution,  All 
denial  of  any  one,  or  all,  of  these  doctrines  has  been,  in  fuct  and  form, 
based  upon  an  impeachment  of  the  validity  of  these  necessary  ideas  and 
universal  intuitions.  We  may  safely  challenge  philosophers  of  all  schools 
to  furnish  a  single  exception  to  the  above  statement. 

3.  We  have  also,  in  the  above  expositions  and  dogmas,  the  necessary 
consequence  of  ignorance  of  the  doctrine  of  the  validity  of  intuitively 
implied  knowledge.  The  principle  of  Causality,  the  necessary  idea,  or 
axiom,  that  every  event  implies  a  cause,  cannot  by  argument  be  proved 
or  disproved ;  and  that  for  the  obvious  reason,  that  as  a  principle,  a 
principle  having  self-evident  and  necessary  validity,  it  lies  with  other 
principles  of  the  same  class,  at  the  basis  of  all  proof.  The  occurrence  of 
an  event  implies,  of  necessity,  the  prior  existence  of  a  power  adapted  and 
adequate,  when  the  proper  conditions  are  fulfilled,  to  produce  such  events, 

•  Ueberweg,  pp.  216, 217. 


THE  PYRRHONISTS,  323 


and  the  action  of  that  power,  as  a  cause,  in  the  production  of  this  one 
event.  If  an  individual  demands  proof  of  the  validity  of  self-evident  and 
necessary  principles  which  lie  at  the  basis  of  all  proof,  his  demand  may, 
in  the  impressive  language  of  Sextus  Erapiricus,  '  be  abandoned  to  those 
fools  who  habitually  invert  the  natural  order  of  things.'  If  he  attempts 
to  demonstrate  the  invalidity  of  such  principles,  this  attempt  also  may 
very  properly  *  be  abandoned  to  those  fools '  just  designated. 

The  modern  argument,  as  stated  by  Mr.  Hume,  against  the  validity  of 
the  principle  under  consideration  demands  special  notice.  *  The  orujxn 
of  the  notion,'  Mr.  Hume  argues,  '  cannot  so  be  accounted  for  as  to  justify 
our  relying  upon  it  as  a  form  of  cognition.'  This  argument,  if  valid  at 
all,  we  remark,  in  the  first  place,  would  condemn  reliance  upon  any  of 
the  axioms  in  any  of  the  sciences,  and  would  render  science  in  any  form 
impossible.  We  can,  undeniably,  as  readily  account  for  the  origin  of 
this  as  of  any  other  self-evident  principle  that  can  be  named.  Let 
Mr.  Hume,  or  any  other  individual,  account  for  the  oricjxn  of  the 
principles,  Body  implies  space ;  Succession,  time;  or  Things  equal  to  the 
same  thing  are  equal  to  one  another,  and  we  will,  on  the  same  principle, 
account  for  the  origin  of  the  axiom.  Every  event  implies  a  cause. 

But  suppose  we  could  not  account  for  the  origin  of  this  or  any  other 
self-evident  principle :  must  we  for  that  reason  deny  its  validity,  not- 
withstanding we  know,  and  cannot  but  know,  that  it  is  and  must  be 
true  ?  The  origin,  in  thought,  of  an  idea  is  one  thing — the  validity  of 
that  idea  is  quite  another.  In  absolute  ignorance  of  its  origin  we  may 
have  absolute  knowledge  of  its  validity.  We  might  as  properly  deny  the 
existence  of  the  Aurora  Borealis  because  we  cannot  account  for  its  origin, 
as  deny  the  validity  of  a  self-evident  principle  because  we  cannot 
explain  its  origiru 

In  the  case  before  us,  however,  we  are  at  no  logs  for  the  explanation 
demanded.  We  have  a  faculty  of  knowledge.  Reason — a  faculty  which, 
in  the  presence  of  perceived  facts,  apprehends  the  realities  necessarily 
and  intuitively  implied  by  said  facts.  Hence,  on  the  perception  of  body, 
succession,  phenomena,  and  events,  Eeason  gives  us,,  as  implied  by  such 
facts,  space,  time,  substance,  and  cause.  We  have  another  faculty,  the 
Judgment,  which,  in  the  presence  of  the  perceived  and  implied,  aflSrms 
the  intuitive,  self-evident,  and  necessary  relations  between  what  we 
perceive  and  their  implied  realities.  Hence  we  have  a  ready  and 
scientific  exposition  and  explanation  of  the  origin  of  all  self-evident 
truths,  such  as,  Body  implies  space ;  Succession  implies  time;  Phenomena 
imply  substance;  Events  imply  a  cause,  and  Things  equal  to  the  same 
thing  are  equal  to  one  another.  None  but  '  those  fools  who  habitually 
invert  the  natural  order  of  things,*  will  question  the  validity  of  any  of 
these  principlea 

21—2 


A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


The  Peculiar  Form  of  the  Pyrrhonic  Scepticism. 
Professedly,  Scepticism  is  a  system  of  universal  nescience,  as  far  at 
least  as  realities  are  concerned.     The  difficulty  with  its  advocates  has 
ever  been  to  find  a  formula  wliich  will  express  that  doctrine — a  formula 
which  shall  not  be  palpably  self-contradictory.     If  we  affirm  that  nothing 
can  be  known  with  certainty,  or  that  real  knowledge  is  impossible,  in  the 
very  affirmation  we  profess  certain  knowledge  in  one  form  at  least,  and 
thus  contradict  ourselves.     We  also  take  away  all  grounds  for  a  denial  of 
the  possibility  and  actuality  of  real  knowledge  in  all  other  conceivable 
forms.     If  the  Intelligence  is  a  faculty  of  knowledge  relati\ely  to  the 
extent  and  limits  of  its  own  nescience,  it  may  also  be  relatively  to  the 
self  and  not-self,  and  time  and  space.     If  we  affirm  that  we  can,  and  do 
know  phenomena,  but  cannot,  and  do  not  know  noumena,  we  find  our- 
selves involved  in  difficulties  no  less  inexplicable  than  before.     Some  of 
these  essential  and  admitted  phenomena  are  given  in  the  universal  con- 
sciousness, not  as  '  modifications  of  the  soul,'  but  as  the  directly  and 
immediately  and  absolutely  perceived,  or  known,  qualities  of  external 
substances,  the  qualities  of  extension  and  form,  for  example.     As  modifi- 
cations imply  the  real  existence  of  the  subject  modified,  so  the  external 
qualities  referred  to  imply  the  real  existence  of  an  extended  or  material 
substance.     There  is,  and  can  be,  no  landing  place  between  the  doctrine 
of  universal  and  absolute  nescience  and  that  of  a  valid  knowledge,  not 
only  of  phenomena,  but  of  all  realities  which,  phenomena,  as  actually 
given  in  the  universal  consciousness,  imply.     In  other  words,  the  era  has 
arrived  when  thinkers  of  all  schools  in  common  will  find  themselves 
necessitated  to  make  their  election  between  the  doctrine  of  absolute  and 
universal  nescience,  on  the  one  hand,  and  Eealism  on  the  other.     On  the 
authority  of  any  Criterion  on  which  any  thinker  will  prove  the  validity 
of  our  knowledge  in  any  form  whatever,  we  will  demonstrate  the  fact 
that  we  have  a  valid  knowledge,  not  only  of  phenomena,  but  of  matter 
and  spirit,  time  and  space.     But  the  doctrine  of  nescience  cannot    be 
represented   in   thought   or   embodied   in  any   formula   actual   or  con- 
ceivable without  involving  the  absurdity  of  palpable  self-contradiction. 
To  think  is  to  affirm,  and  every  scientific  formula  involves  the  affirma- 
tion of  real  knowledge.     To  affirm  that  we  don't  know,  that  we  don't 
know  anything,  is  to  aff.rm  that  we  do  know  our  own  nescience,  and 
thus  to  contradict  ourselves.      The  same  holds  equally  when  ancient  and 
modern  sceptics,  such  as  Pyrrho,  Timon,  and  Mill,  professedly  prove  that 
proof,  in  all  its  forms,  is  impossible,  that  is,  involves  the  vicious  error  of 
petitio  principii. 

We  have  already  indicated  the  formula  of  the  Pyrrhonists — to  wit,  *  I 
assert  nothiug,  not  even  that  I  assert  nothing ;  for  I  do  not  know  that 


THE  PYRRHONISTS.  325 


I  do  not  know:  anything;.'  The  Pyrrhonists  were  accustomed  to  contrast 
their  doctrine  with  that  of  the  Scepticism  of  the  !N^ew  Academy  in  this 
form.  The  latter  affirmed  that  they  did  know  one  thing — to  wit,  that 
nothing  is  knowable,  whereas  the  former  denied  the  possibility  of  know- 
ledge even  in  this  one  form,  vainly  supposing  that  in  this  denial  they 
escaped  the  palpable  contradiction  which  a  profession  to  know  that 
nothing  is  knowable  undeniably  involves.  Such  is  the  absurdity  and 
self-contradiction  of  false  science. 

Thb  Consummation  souonT  by  the  Pyrrhonists  through  their 

Philosophy. 

When  men  philosophize  they  have  an  end  in  view,  just  as  they  have 
when  engaged  in  any  other  occupation.  The  end  which  the  Pyrrhonists 
professedly  sought  through  Philosophy  was  ataraxy,  or  absolute  quietude 
aud  imperturbableness  of  mind.  The  immutable  condition  of  attaining 
this  state,  they  affirmed,  was  an  utter  suspension  of  all  judgments  in 
respect  to  all  realities  in  common.  Hence  they  denied  all  knowledge  of 
all  objects,  even  of  our  ignorance  of  the  same,  all  distinctions  between 
right  and  wrong,  beauty  and  deformity,  great  and  small,  pleasure  and 
pain,  and  even  life  and  death.  The  Yogee  of  the  school  of  Kapila 
affirmed  that  when  he  had  attained  to  a  distinct  recognition  of  the 
absolute  validity  of  the  formula,  '  neither  do  I  exist,  nor  anything  which 
pertains  to  myself;  all  individual  existence  is  a  dream,'  an  enfranchise- 
ment resulted  in  which  the  mind  had  absolute  quietude  in  regard  to  all 
objects  and  events.  So  the  Pyrrhonists,  borrowing  the  idea  no  doubt 
from  their  Oriental  predecessors,  affirmed  that  when  there  is  a  distinct 
recognition  of  the  formula,  that  notliiug  is  knowable,  that  to  the  Intelli- 
gence all  objects  and  events  are  absolutely  alike,  and  that  even  between 
life  and  death  there  is  no  recognizable  difference,  there  then  resulted  a 
state  of  absolute  and  unchangeable  ataraxy — an  indisturbable  mental 
immovableness,  which  is  the  Sammum  Bonum — a  state  attainable  by  the 
science  of  absolute  nescience. 

All  this,  supposing  absolute  immobility  and  indiflferentism  to  be  the 
Summum  Bonum,  would  be  a  very  direct  and  almost  instantaneous 
method  of  attaining  this  state,  provided  the  Intelligence  could  be  brought 
really  thus  to  regard  all  objects  and  events,  and  provided  also  that  our 
Sensitivity  is  affected  by  no  causes  but  the  states  of  the  Intelligence. 
Neither  of  these  conditions,  however,  is  possible.  Gout  and  rheumatism 
and  the  toothache  are  none  of  them  intellectual  states,  and  yet  they 
terribly  affect  us.  "We  may  affirm  that  there  is  1:0  difference  between 
these  so-called  pains  and  the  sensations  induced  by  the  sweetest  music 
ear  ever  heard.  Yet  even  the  Pyrrhonist  would  infinitely  prefer  the 
latter  to  the  former.     If  all  objects  are  in  themselves  alike,  they  seem 


326  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

different,  and  as  causes  of  states  of  the  Sensitivity,  they  are  *  what  their 
seeming  shows.' 

Wherein  lies  the  real  diflference  between  life  and  death,  according  to 
the  teachings  of  modern  any  more  than  ancient  Scepticism,  to  us  it  is 
impossible  to  determine.  All  correct  definitions  enable  us  to  distinguish 
the  things  defined  from  all  other  objects.  The  common  definition  of  a 
square,  for  example,  enables  us  at  once  to  distinguish  all  such  figures 
from  a  circle  or  a  triangle.  The  following,  after  many  discriminations,  is 
the  definition  of  life  given  by  Mr.  Spencer,  the  central  light  of  modern 
Scepticism.  *  Life,'  he  says,  '  is  the  definite  combination  of  heterogeneous 
changes  both  simultaneous  and  successive,  together  with  external  co- 
existences and  sequences,'  Two  forms  are  before  us,  the  one  living,  and 
the  other  dead.  The  problem  to  be  solved  is — the  real  difference  between 
them,  and  that  in  the  light  of  this  definition.  Undeniably  there  are,  in 
each  alike,  '  changes  both  simultaneous  and  successive,  together  with 
external  co-existences  and  sequences.'  So  far,  life  and  death  are  abso- 
lutely identical.  The  only  remaining  question  is  in  which  of  these  forms 
is  there,  and  in  which  is  there  not,  a  '  definite  combination  of  heterogeneoiis 
changes,'  and  these  identical  changes  '  both  simultaneous  and  successive  ]' 
We  may  defy  the  world  to  show  in  the  light  of  this  definition  the  real 
difference  between  these  two  forms,  that  is,  between  life  and  death. 
Thus  it  is  that  the  ancient  Yogee  and  Pyrrhonist,  together  with  the 
modern  Sceptic,  after  carrying  us  round,  after  the  method  of  Hogg's 
Tales,  a  vast  circle,  promising  all  the  while  to  *  show  us  great  and 
wondrous  things  that  we  knew  not  of,'  set  us  down  at  last  at  our  point 
of  departure,  just  as  we  were  when  we  started,  with  this  difference,  that 
during  our  false  progress  a  fatal  disregard  has  been  induced  with  respect 
to  the  greatest  of  all  concerns,  those  involved  in  our  vital  relations  to 
God,  duty,  immortality,  and  retributioa. 


SECTION  It 

THE  OI.D,  MIDDLE,  AND  NEW  ACADEMY. 

The  epoch  in  which  the  doctrines  of  Plato  were  adhered  to  by  his  suc- 
cessors is  called  the  Old,  that  in  which  important,  but  not  fundamental, 
changes  were  made  in  his  doctrines,  is  designated  as  the  Middle,  and  that 
in  which  his  teachings  were  totally  subverted,  or  abandoned,  is  named 
the  New  Academy.  The  follo'wiug  extract  from  the  'Epitome  of  the 
History  of  Philosophy,'  presents,  perhaps,  a  better  account  of  the  progress 
of  ])hilosophic  thought  in  the  Platonic  School  than  is  given  in  any  other 
work. 


THE  OLD,  MIDDLE,  AND  NEW  ACADEMY.  327 

*  Of  all  the  Greek  schools,  Platonism  had  the  most  elevated  preten- 
sions. Its  tlieory  of  ideas  involved  the  complete  and  absolute  knowledge 
of  things  in  themselves.  Platonism,  in  this  point  of  view,  represented, 
80  to  say,  the  high  aristocracy  of  the  intellect,  and  must  needs  have  been, 
accordingly,  the  particular  object  of  attack  by  the  other  schools,  among 
whom  a  common  jealousy  united  against  it.  But  the  more  attractive 
this  science  was,  which  was  to  dissipate  all  darkness  from  the  human 
mind,  the  more  difficult  it  was  to  hold  firmly  to  it  in  the  midst  of  the 
incessant  objections  opposed  to  it  on  all  hands  by  its  adversaries.  As 
the  Platonists  held  in  contempt  all  the  theories  of  knowledge  maintained 
in  the  other  schools,  they  would  naturally,  when  once  they  admitted  a 
doubt  as  to  their  own  theory,  begin  to  despair  of  the  human  intelligence 
itself.  This  explains  the  apparently  singular  phenomenon,  namely,  that 
Platonism,  which  exalted  the  human  mind  to  the  greatest  height,  was 
the  first  to  descend  towards  the  opposite  extreme — the  first  to  establish  a 
mitigated  Scepticism.  In  the  period  which  we  are  surveying,  it  no  longer 
attributed  to  the  human  Intelligence  the  power  of  knowing  things  in 
themselves  and  with  certainty;  it  allowed  to  Reason  no  other  Criteiion 
than  probable  appearancea'  We  accordingly  find  that  at  the  opening  of 
the  Christian  Era,  while  Peripatetics,  Stoics,  Epicureans,  and  Sceptics 
were  numerous  throughout  the  Eoman  Empire,  or  the  then  civilized 
world,  those  who  maintained,  in  fact  and  form,  the  doctrines  of  Plato, 
were  found  nowhere,  not  even  in  Greece  itself  As  long  as  Plato  lived, 
his  character  and  reputation  saved  his  doctrines  from  disrespect.  When 
he  left  the  scene,  and  his  successors  attempted  to  defend  his  doctrines 
from  the  common  assaults  of  all  the  other  schools,  they  found  the  task 
too  great  for  them.  They  could  neither  disprove  the  doctrines  of  their 
opponents,  nor  defend  their  own.  Plato  denied  the  validity  of  sense- 
perception,  yet  affirmed  the  absolute  validity  of  perception  the  same  in 
kind  in  a  former  state.  Of  present  perception  we  are  immediately 
conscious.  Of  perception  in  a  former  state,  but  '  a  small  portion  of  men  * 
have  only  that  form  of  knowledge  which  results  through  reminiscence. 
Where  is  there,  or  can  there  be,  any  ground  whatever  for  denying  wholly 
the  validity  of  conscious  perception,  and  affirming  the  absolute  infalli- 
bility of  mere  reminiscence  ?  No  system  thus  proudly  pretentious,  thus 
foundationless  in  its  principles,  and  thus  open  to  attack,  could  long 
sustain  the  shock  of  criticism. 

The  Probable  Substituted  for  the  Absolutb. 
The  first  modification  which  occurred   in  the  Platonic  doctrine  was 
made  in  what  was  called  the  Middle  Academy,  and  consisted  in  the  sub- 
stitution of  probable  for  absolute  forms  of  knowledge.     We  know  not, 
and  cannot  know,  it  was  affirmed,  realities  as  they  are  in  themselves.     All 


328  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY, 

that  we  can  know  of  them  is  through  appearances,  images  which  come  to 
us  from  objects  around  us.  Whether  these  images  do,  or  do  not,  corre- 
spond with  their  objects,  we  cannot  know  with  certainty,  because  we 
cannot  compare  the  former  with  the  latter.  That  there  is  such  con- 
formity, however,  more  or  less  exact,  is  altogether  probable,  and  this 
probability  was  increased  by  such  circumstances  as  the  following :  the 
liveliness  of  the  impression ;  the  agreement  of  one  appearance  with  others  ; 
and  an  examination  of  the  same  appearance  under  different  aspects.  If, 
under  diverse  aspects,  the  appearance  always  remains  the  same  in  all 
essential  particulars,  it  would  demand,  in  connection  with  other  Criteria, 
a  form  of  assurance  which  rationally  excludes  all  doubt  The  difference 
between  this  doctrine  and  the  Scepticism  of  the  Pyrrhonists  is  thus 
shown  by  Sextus  Empiricus.  *  Many  persons,'  he  says,  *  confound  the 
Philosophy  of  the  Academy  with  that  of  the  Sceptics.  But  although  the 
disciples  of  the  New  Academy  declare  that  all  things  are  incomprehen- 
sible, yet  they  are  distinguished  from  the  Pyrrhonists  in  this  very 
dogmatism:  they  affirm  that  all  things  are  incomprehensible;  the 
Sceptics  do  not  affirm  that.  Moreover,  the  Sceptics  consider  all  percep- 
tions perfectly  equal  as  to  the  faithfulness  of  their  testimony ;  the 
Academicians  distinguish  between  probdble  and  improbable  perceptions ; 
the  first  they  class  under  various  heads.  There  are  some,  they  say,  which 
are  merely  probable,  others  which  are  conBrmed  by  reflection,  others 
which  are  subject  to  no  doubt.  Assent  is  of  two  kinds :  simple  assent, 
which  the  mind  yields  without  repugnance  as  without  desire,  such  as  that 
of  a  child  following  its  master :  and  the  assent  whicli  follows  upon  convic- 
tion and  reflection.  The  Sceptics  admitted  the  former  kind;  the 
Academicians  the  latter.' 

If  we  were  necessitated  to  abandon  the  doctrine  of  certain  knowledge, 
which  we  are  not,  and  then  to  make  our  election  between  that  of  Pro- 
bability and  absolute  Scepticism,  we  should  select  the  former  as  being 
infinitely  the  more  reasonable  and  the  more  safe.  Scepticism  has  no 
form,  nor  degree,  not  only  of  positive  proof  or  evidence,  but  even  of  ante- 
cedent probability  in  its  favour.  On  the  other  hand,  the  probabilities 
are  as  infinity  to  unity  in  favour  as  against  the  doctrine  of  the  soul,  of 
matter,  time,  space,  God,  duty,  immortality,  and  retribution.  Action 
with  us  must  in  most  cases,  even  in  the  most  important  concerns  of  life, 
have  no  other  basis  than  probability.  In  concerns  of  infinite  moment, 
as  in  the  case  of  a  care,  or  non-care  of  the  soul,  of  worship  or  non- 
worship,  and  of  Infinity  and  Peifection,  where  no  form  of  proof,  positive 
evidence,  or  even  antecedent  probability  exists  in  favour  of  the  Sceptical 
hypothesis,  and  the  case,  as  La  Place  affirms,  stands  *  as  infinity  to  unity  ' 
in  favour  of  the  Theistic  doctrine,  we  should  morally  and  intellectually 


THE  OLD,  MIDDLE,  AND  NEW  ACADEMY.  329 

dementate  ourselves,  if  we  should  make  che  Sceptical  seutiment  the  guide 
of  our  life. 

Among  the  Greeks,  Arcesilaus  (316 — 241  B.C.),  and  Carneades  (214 — 
129  B.C.)  are  the  most  celebrated  representatives  of  this  new  doctrine.  la 
their  disputes  with  the  Stoics  they  took  the  ground  of  extreme  Scepti- 
cism, denying  absolutely  that  we  have  any  Criterion  of  truth.  In  their  con- 
troversy with  the  Sceptics  they  opposed  to  absolute  and  universal  Doubt 
the  doctrine  of  Probability.  Of  the  doctrine  last  named,  Cicero  was  one 
of  the  most  able  and  illustrious  defenders.  '  It  is  more  reasonable  and 
safe,'  he  argued,  *  to  care  for  the  soul  than  to  disregard  its  possible  im- 
mortal interests.  If  we  care  for  such  interests,  and  the  soul  dies  witli 
the  body,  the  Sceptic  will  not  be  with  us  in  eternity  to  laugh  at  us  for 
our  superstition.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  soul  is  immortal,  the  Sceptic 
may  forever  regret  his  temerity  in  disregarding  its  immortal  interests.' 
This  is  the  substance  of  Cicero's  argument  upon  this  subject.  His  famous 
argument  for  the  doctrine  of  God  is  familiar  to  our  readers,  and  anni- 
hilates forever  all  excuse  for  a  Godless  life. 

In  the  New  Academy  the  doctrine  of  Scepticism  became  more  and  more 
intense,  until  in  the  school  which  he  had  established  nothing  of  Plato 
remained  but  his  nama  In  his  first  lecture  in  Rome,  for  example, 
Carneades  delighted  even  the  Stoic  Cato  with  his  able  and  eloquent 
exposition  of  the  doctrine  of  Justice.  The  next  day,  however,  he 
astonished  the  same  audience  by  a  professed  demonstration  of  equal 
brilliancy,  that  knowledge  on  all  subjects  in  common  is  utterly  void  of 
certainty,  and  by  an  afl&rmed  refutation  of  all  the  arguments  which  he 
had  the  day  preceding  presented  in  favour  of  the  doctrine  of  Justice. 
Cato,  in  view  of  such  subverting  intellectual  jugglery,  persuaded  the 
Senate  to  banish  such  philosophers  from  Eomei  We  have  here  '  the 
oppositions '  (antitheses,  antinomies)  *  of  science  falsely  so-called  '  to 
which  Paul  refers,  'Antitheses  of  Science,'  and  'Antinomies  of  Pure 
Keason '  which  lie  at  the  basis  of  ancient  and  modern  Scepticism.  In  all 
such  processes,  there  is  this  fundamental  sophism,  that  by  proof  the  in- 
validity of  all  proof  may  be  demonstrated,  and  that  by  processes  of 
reasoning  the  invalidity  of  all  facts  and  principles,  which  lie  at  the  basis 
of  all  reasoning,  may  be  established*  If  all  argument,  with  its  basis, 
facts,  and  principles,  is  invalid,  such  invalidity  cannot  be  verified  by 
argument  What  is  the  wisdom  or  use  of  begging,  as  Mr.  Mill  and  all 
Sceptics  do,  that  all  deduction  is  begged  %  Can  any  argument  have 
validity  the  conclusion  of  which  w,  that  all  argument  is  invalid,  and  that 
the  same  is  true  of  all  facts  and  principles  that  lie  at  the  basis  of  all 
argument?  Such  juggling  in  logic  as  this  can  have  place  but  iu  the 
brain  of  false  science.  Besides,  as  we  have  formerly  stated,  the  conclusion 
deduced  from  these  afidrmed  antitheses  must  undeniably  have  greater  cer- 


330  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

taiuty  and  validity  than  is  possessed  by  the  intuitive  and  necessary  con- 
victions which  are  thereby  impeached.  Can  we  be  as  certain  of  the 
validity  of  the  Sceptic's  argument  as  we  are  of  the  fact  of  our  own  exist- 
ence, and  of  that  of  material  forms  around  us  ) 


SECTION  III. 

CONTINUATION  OF  THE  ARISTOTELIAN  SCHOOLS. 

In  the  theology  of  Aristotle  God  had  place  but  as  the  passive  cause  of 
the  organization  of  the  universe,  and  of  the  events  of  universal  providence. 
In  the  teachings  of  his  successors,  the  Divine  Idea  gradually  faded  out, 
and  was  at  last  supplanted  by  Absolute  Naturalism.  Theophrastus 
(373 — 287  B.C.),  who  was  selected  by  Aristotle  as  his  successor,  while  he 
in  general  remained  true  to  the  doctrines  of  his  predecessor,  gave  great 
prominence  to  the  idea  of  motion  as  a  primal  cause  in  nature,  and  even 
represented  thought  as  a  species  of  motion.  Virtue  he  taught  to  be 
worthy  of  being  sought  on  its  own  account ;  yet  affirmed  that  slight 
deviations  from  rules  of  morality  were  permissible  when  great  good  could 
be  secured,  or  great  evils  averted  thereby.  External  good  he  held  to  be 
essential  as  a  means  of  cultivating  virtue.  The  Stoics  attributed  to  him 
the  maxim,  that  fortune,  and  not  wisdom,  or  virtue,  is  the  rule  of  life. 

Strabo  of  Lampsicus,  the  successor  of  Theophrastus,  reduced  the  doc- 
trines of  Aristotle  to  a  Pure  Naturalism.  Perception  and  thought,  he 
held,  were  identical,  and  denied  that  mind  has  any  existence  separate 
from  the  body.  Other  Peripatetics,  as  stated  by  Ueberweg  on  the  autho- 
rity of  Cicero,  while  they  agreed  with  Aristotle  in  the  general  doctrine  of 
the  soul,  taught  that  'There  exist  no  individual  substantial  souls,  but 
only  in  its  stead,  one  universal,  vital,  and  sensitive  force,  which  is  diffused 
through  all  existing  organisms,  and  is  transiently  individualized  in  different 
bodies.'  We  thus  perceive  the  consequences  of  a  fundamental  error  intro- 
duced into  a  system  otherwise  true.  Out  of  Aristotle's  doctrine  of  the 
absolute  passivity  of  God  in  creation  and  providence,  there  resulted,  among 
his  early  successors  in  his  own  school,  the  doctrine  of  Pure  Materialism 
on  the  one  hand,  and  Immaterial  Pantheism  on  the  other. 

The  writings  of  Aristotle,  however,  continued  to  be  generally  read  and 
studied,  and  were  the  subjects  of  many  commentaries  in  the  schools,  not 
only  of  Greece,  but  of  Egypt  and  Pome.  Thus  the  way  was  prepared 
for  the  perpetuity  of  his  influence  for  ages  after  the  commencement  of 
the  Christian  era.  In  the  school  of  Aristotle,  the  doctrine  of  Nominal- 
ism, and  in  that  of  Plato,  that  which,  for  ages,  was  designated  as 
Realism,  were  fully  developed,  and  were  handed  down  to  posterity  for 
elucidation. 


CONTINUATION  OF  THE  ARISTOTELIAN  SCHOOLS.  331 

4.  The  fundamental  question  agitated  in  all  the  schools  of  Greece  was 
in  substance  this :  What  is  the  Summum  Bonum  f  In  other  words,  On 
what  conditions  can  human  misery  be  terminated,  and  perfect  happiness 
be  secured  ]  All  men  were  visibly  and  consciously  evil  and  unhappy,  and. 
all  as  consciously  desired  to  find  a  remedy  for  the  evil  and  its  consequent 
misery,  and  to  attain  rest.  While  all  these  schools  agitated  these  great 
problems,  all  as  visibly  failed  in  their  solution.  Yet  the  agitation  kept 
the  problems  distinctly  and  impressively  before  the  popular  mind,  and 
induced  a  universal  yearning  for  a  discovery  of  the  secret  which  should 
*  end  the  heartache,  and  all  the  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to,'  and  thus  prepared 
the  way  for  a  ready  reception  of  the  sovereign  remedy  which  Christianity 
did  reveal. 

SECTION  IV. 

NEO-PLATONISM. 

In  its  attempts  to  solve  the  problem  of  universal  being  and  its  laws, 
Grecian  thought  was,  even  to  itself,  a  demonstrated  failure,  and  had  settled 
down  into  the  general  formula  of  Scepticism,  *  that  we  do  not  know  that 
we  do  not  know  anything.'  Such  was  the  general  sentiment  of  the 
leading  Grecian  Schools.  At  this  era  Greece  ceased  to  be  the  home  of 
Philosophy.  Grecian  thinkers  no  longer  respected  at  home  travelled, 
and  carried  their  doctrines  into  other  countries,  particularly  into  Rome 
and  Egypt  Eoman  thought  took  form  from  the  Grecian,  but  originated 
nothing  even  apparently  new.  At  Alexandria  in  Egypt,  however,  a 
famous  school  of  thinkers  arose,  who  attempted  to  create  a  new  system 
out  of  the  blended  forms  of  Oriental  and  Grecian  Positivisms.  The  mind 
can  never  long  rest  in  the  blind  negations  of  Scepticism.  The  dominion 
of  Sceptical  thought  has,  consequently,  always  been  superseded  by  Posi- 
tive systems  of  some  kind.  Hence  thinkers  of  Alexandria,  such  as 
Philo  the  Jew,  Amraonius  Saccas,  and  Plotinus,  were  all  Positivists.  In 
Grecian  thought,  as  has  been  well  said,  *  Theology  was  much  less  de- 
veloped than  Cosmology,  and  Cosmology  than  Anthropology.  In  Oriental 
thought,  on  the  other  liand.  Theology  has  the  first  place.  Cosmology  the 
second,  and  Anthropology  almost  no  place  at  all.  In  the  schools  of 
Alexandria  Theology  became  the  leading  object  of  thought  and  inquiry. 
In  the  system  of  Philo,  who  was  born  a  few  years  prior  to  the 
Christian  Era,  we  meet  with  the  doctrine  of  a  personal  God,  '  the  object 
of  immediate  subjective  certainty,'  and  also  inferrible  from  creation,  an 
inference  based  upon  the  axiom,  *  No  work  of  skill  makes  itsel£'  So  far 
we  have  essentially  the  doctrine  of  the  Old  Testament.  In  creation, 
however,  God  acts  through  delegated  powers  originally  created  by  Him, 
particularly  through  the  highest  of  all  the  divine  forces,  the  Logos  (tho 


332  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Word).  This  Logos  is  styled  by  Philo,  '  the  Sou,  the  Paraclete,  the 
Mediator  between  God  and  man.'  Virtue  consists  in  likeness  to  God. 
Man  is  strong  and  wise,  instead  of  weak  and  foolish,  when  his  '  soul 
becomes  the  dwelling  place  of  God,'  and  the  soul's  *  highest  blessedness 
is  to  abide  in  God.'  The  central  Christian  idea,  that  '  the  Word  became 
flesh  and  dwelt  among  us,'  has  no  place  in  the  teachings  of  this  thinker. 
His  doctrine  of  the  Logos,  leaving  out  the  idea  of  incarnation,  is  Ariau, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  Platonic  on  the  other.  For  a  full  statement  of  the 
doctrines  of  this  author,  we  would  refer  especially  to  Ueberweg's  '  History 
of  Philosophy.'  In  Plotinus  (204 — 269  a.d.)  a  disciple  of  Ammonius 
Saccas,  of  whom  we  shall  speak  more  at  large  in  another  connection,  Neo- 
Platonism  reached  its  consummation,  and  with  him  the  history  of 
Grecian  Philosophy  properly  terminates.  In  the  system  of  Plotinus,  we 
have  a  reproduction,  in  fact  and  form,  of  the  ancient.  Oriental,  prior 
Grecian,  and  an  anticipation  of  modern  Pantheism,  and  this  doctrine  was 
by  him  presented  in  opposition  to  Christian  Theism.  From  Plato  he 
borrowed  the  doctrine  that  all  science  must  be  of  universals.  Individuals 
are  nothing  but  phenomena  which  have  no  real  existence.  Universals 
alone,  as  ideas,  have  real  existence.  Ideas  as  Noumena  are  but  manifes- 
tations of  one  common  Noumenou,the  sensible  world  being  the  phenomenon 
of  the  Ideal  world,  and  the  Ideal  world  the  mode  of  the  divine  existence. 
The  condition  of  real  knowledge  is  the  absolute  identity  of  the  subject 
and  object  of  knowledge,  or  of  thought  and  the  thing  thought  of.  The 
faculty  by  which  the  mind  knows  the  Infinite,  as  the  only  real  existence, 
is  called  Ecstasy. 

*  If,'  says  Plotinus,  as  cited  by  Mr.  Lewes,  '  knowledge  is  the  same  as 
the  thing  known,  the  Finite,  as  Finite,  never  can  know  the  Infinite, 
because  it  cannot  be  Infinite.  To  attempt,  therefore,  to  know  the 
Infinite  by  Reason  is  futile ;  it  (the  Infinite)  can  only  be  known  in 
immediate  presence.  The  Faculty  by  which  the  mind  divests  itself  of 
its  personality  is  Ecstasy.  In  this  Ecstasy  the  soul  becomes  loosened 
from  its  material  prison,  separated  from  individual  consciousness,  and 
becomes  absorbed  in  the  Infinite  Intelligence  from  which  it  emanated. 
In  this  Ecstasy  it  contemplates  real  existence — it  identifies  itself  with 
that  which  it  contemplates.' 

Various  terms  are  employed  by  Plotinus  to  represent  the  primal 
essence  or  thought  of  which  all  appearances  are  emanations,   such  as 

*  the  First,*  *  the  One,'  '  the  Good,'  and  '  that  which  stands  above  being.' 
When  he  attempted  to  find  terms  by  which  to  represent  any  definite 
idea  of  this  primal  essence,  he  found  himself  at  an  utter  loss,  not  having 
any  definite  views  himself  upon  the  subject.  On  the  negative  side,  he 
denies  of  this  essence,  *  all  thinking  and  willing,'  '  all  energy,'  '  life '  and 

*  essence.'    On  the  positive  side,  he  affirmed  that  this  essence  '  needs 


NEO-PLATONIS^r.  333 


nothing  and  can  desire  nothing,'  that  it  is  '  above  energy,'  and  can 
'neither  be  expressed  nor  thought.*  Yet  it  is  the  producer  of  all  things 
— the  producer,  not  by  a  voluntary  creative  fiat,  but  by  necessary  emana- 
tion. From  excess  of  energy,  that  which  has  no  energy  nor  being,  but 
is  above  both,  radiates  images  of  itself,  just  as  the  sun  emits  rays  of 
itself.  These  images  involuntarily  turn  towards  their  original  in  order 
to  behold  it,  and  thus  become  mind.  In  this  mind  ideas  are  immanent 
as  essential  parts  of  itself.  In  becoming  conscious  of  these  immanent 
ideas,  mind  apprehends  the  self  and  the  not-self,  that  io,  the  universe  of 
matter  and  spirit,  and  God  as  the  Author  of  all  things.  In  Ecstasy,  mind 
apprehends  the  self,  the  world,  and  God,  as  one  and  identical.  Perhaps 
Mr.  Lewes,  in  the  following  expressive  sentence,  has  represented  as 
clearly  as  can  be  done  the  real  idea  of  this  last  of  the  Greek  philosophers. 
*  God  therefore  in  His  absolute  state — in  His  first  and  highest  Hypostasis 
— is  neither  Existence  nor  Thought,  neither  moved  nor  mutable ;  He  is 
the  simple  Unity,  or,  as  Hegel  would  say,  the  Absolute  Nothing,  the 
Immanent  Negativa' 

In  his  system  Plotinus  professedly  embodied  the  ultimate  deductions  of 
all  the  forms  of  Oriental  and  Grecian  Idealism.  Had  his  ecstatic  visions 
given  him  a  knowledge  of  the  future,  he  might  have  said  with  equal 
truth  that  lie  had  fully  anticijjated,  in  all  essential  particulars,  the 
systems  of  modern  Pantheism  and  Pure  Idealism.  The  following  facts 
will  fully  verify  all  the  above  statements. 

1.  The  faculty  of  Ecstasy  is  undeniably  identical  with  that  of  Intui- 
tion or  Eeason  affirmed  by  the  Oriental  Yogee,  the  Nous  or  Eeason  of 
the  Grecian  Idealist,  and  'the  Special  Faculty  of  Intellectual  Intuition' 
of  the  Modern  Transcendentalist.  In  all  these  schools  the  same  identical 
offices  or  functions  are  performed  by  the  faculty  represented  by  these 
different  terms. 

2.  The  method  of  induction  and  deduction  is  also  one  and  identicaL 
In  no  case  is  there,  in  any  form,  an  induction  of  facts  of  external  or  in- 
ternal perception.  On  the  other  hand,  '  by  an  act  of  (so-called)  scientific 
Scepticism  to  which  the  mind  voluntarily  determines  itself,'  such  facts  are 
treated  as  nothing  but  a  prejudice.  In  all  systems  in  common,  the  sub- 
ject 'puts  himself  into  a  state  of  not  knowing,  when  he  begins  to  philoso- 
phize,' and  then,  by  direct,  immodiate,  b.  priori  intuition,  apprehends 
'  Brahm,'  '  Pironis,'  '  the  One,'  '  the  Absolute,'  or  *  the  Immanent  No- 
thing,' as  the  only  real  existence. 

3.  All  philosophers  of  all  these  schools  also  agree  in  this,  that  with 
none  of  them  are  these  visions  of  the  primal  essence  habitual.  In  all  the 
ordinary  circumstances  of  life,  they  think,  and  feel,  and  act ;  eat,  drink, 
sleep,  and  believe,  just  as  all  the  rest  of  us  poor  mortals  do.  But  when 
they  all  in  common  '  put  themselves  into  a  state  of  not-knowing  and  begin 


334  ^  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY, 

to  philosophize,'  a  partof  thera  sitting  in  anoveless  posture,  with  *their  eyes 
fixed  upon  the  end  of  their  noses,'  'they  hecome  wide  awake,'  have  visions 
of  'existence  m  se,'  and  behold  face  to  face  'the  primal  essence,'  which  is 
'neither  Existence  nor  Thought,'  '  Brahm,'  'the  One,'  'the  All  One,' 

*  the  Immanent  Nothing,'  and  behold  this  '  Simple  Unity  '  as  the  only  real 
existence,  all  seeming  realities  being  only  reflections  of  their  original  and 
identical  with  it.  It  is  only  occasionally,  we  say,  that  any  of  these  philo- 
sophers, as  they  themselves  admit,  enjoy  'these  visions  of 'the  Absolute.' 
'  Only  rarely,'  says  Plotinus,  '  does  the  direct  vision  of  the  Supreme  God 
fall  to  the  lot  of  the  best  of  men,  the  virtuous  and  wise,  the  God-like  and 
blessed.'  Porphyry  informs  us  that  it  was  only  four  times  during  the  six 
years  which  he  spent  with  Plotinus,  that  the  latter  attained  to  those 
'  Ecstatic  visions,'  '  this  unification  with  God.' 

4.  All  these  philosophers  also  agree  in  calling  these  occasional  visions 
science,  and  in  enthroning  them  as  of  supreme  authority  above  all  intui- 
tions of  the  Universal  Intelligence,  and  all  deductions  from  the  same.  All 
admit  that  if  we  rely  upon  intuition  and  deduction  from  intuition,  we  can- 
not be  Idealists.  Absolute  faith  in  o^^nm  visions  of  the  Absolute,  call 
this  faculty  by  what  name  you  will,  is,  as  these  philosophers  all  teach,  the 
immutable  condition  of  '  taking  the  tirst  step  in  the  Speculative  Philo- 
sophy.* If  we  ask  the  question,  PFhy  shall  we  accept  of  these  'Ecstatic 
visions'  and  a  priori  insights,  and  reject  universal  intuition,  and  all  de- 
ductions from  the  same,  as  truths  of  science,  these  philosophers  aro 
silent.  '  The  German  philosophers,'  says  Mr.  Lewes,  '  proceed  with 
peaceable  dogmatism  to  tell  you  that  God  is  this  or  that;  to  explain  how 
Nothing  becomes  the  existing  world,  to  explain  many  other  inexplicable 
things ;  and  if  you  stop  them  with  the  simple,  How  do  you  know  this — 
what  is  your  ground  of  certitude  1  they  will  allude  blandly  to  their 
Verunst,  and  continue  their  exposition.'  It  is  high  time  for  all  thinkers  who 
•would  not  be  fatally  misledin  respect  to  questions  of  eternally  vital  concern, 
to  '  beco  me  wide-awake '  to  one  immutable  conviction,  that  where  so- 
called  systems  of  science,  however  logically  self-consistent,  and  by  what- 
ever names  commended  to  our  regard — that  wherever  and  whenever  such 
systems  ignore,  deny,  and  nullify  all  our  universal  and  intuitive  convictions 
of  truth,  we  should  question  the  validity  of  such  systems,  and  require, 
before  admitting  their  deductions  at  all,  evidence  of  a  higher  and  more 
absolute  kind  than  we  have  of  our  own  personal  existence,  and  that  of  the 
universe  around  us.    The  time  is  coming,  and  quite  near,  we  believe,  when 

*  the  absurdities  of  genius,'  the  extravagances  of  philosophers,  and  '  the 
contradictions  of  science  falsely  so-called,'  will  stand  forth  as  the  eighth 
wonder  of  the  world,  while  the  ninth  and  greatest  wonder  of  all  will  be 
the  fact,  that  under  the  lead  of  such  monstrously  absurd  teachings  any 
thinking  portion  of  the  race  accepted  of  such  extravagances  as  truths  of 


NEO-PLATONISM.  335 


science,  and  repudiated  universal  and  absolute  intuition  as  illusion.  Sup- 
pose that  Mr.  Schelling,  or  any  other  Transcendentalist,  were  required  to 
give  us  specific  reasons  for  the  absolute  authority  claimed  for  this  faculty 
of  Intellectual  Intuition  (intellectuelle  Anschauung),  he  would  be  put  to 
silence  in  a  moment.  Every  reflecting  thinker,  Mr.  Schelling  among  the 
rest,  cannot  but  be  aware  that  no  such  grounds  of  certitude  exist.  If  any 
thinker  would  seriously  ask  himself  the  question,  Have  I  as  real  and  as 
rational  grounds  for  an  assurance  of  the  validity  of  the  revelations  of  this 
'Faculty  of  Intellectual  Intuition,'  or  'Ecstasy,'  or  of  '  d priori  Insight,' 
as  I  have  for  my  own  conscious  personal  existence,  and  of  that  of  the 
universe  around  me — he  would  perceive  at  once  that  Avhile  universal  In- 
tuition has  the  most  absolutely  rational  basis,  the  revelations  of  this 
*  Intellectuelle  Anschauung,'  a  faculty  supposed  to  be  possessed  only  by 
a  very  few  of  the  race,  rest  upon  the  most  shadowy  grounds  conceivable. 

General  Eeplections  on  the  Grecian  Evolution  in  Philosophy. 

We  have  now  completed  our  criticisms  of  the  Grecian  Evolution  in 
Philosophy.  What  remains  is  comprised  in  a  few  general  reflections  on 
the  character  and  results  of  this  Evolution. 

Verification  op  our  Statement  in  Eegard  to  the  ITumber  and 
Character  of  all  Possible  and  Actual  Systkms  of  Philosophy. 

We  have  another  fundamental  verification  of  a  statement  made  in 
the  General  Introduction,  namely,  that  there  never  has  been,  and  never 
can  be,  but  a  certain  specific  number  of  systems  of  Ontology,  and  that 
they  all  take  form  and  character  from  certain  definite  postulates,  pertain- 
ing to  the  relations  of  the  human  Intelligence  to  four  realities,  to  wit, 
spirit  and  matter,  and  time  and  space.  In  our  examination,  first  of  the 
Oriental  and  then  of  the  Grecian  systems,  we  have  found  that  each  system 
took  specific  form  from  a  definite  hypothesis  of  this  kind.  Materialism 
in  all  ages  and  schools  has,  in  fact  and  form,  one  exclusive  basis — an 
affirmed  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  matter,  and  a  denial  of  that  of 
spirit.  Idealism,  as  Ideal  Dualism,  Subjective  Idealism,  Pantheism,  and 
Pure  Idealism,  has  a  basis  equally  specific — a  denial  of  the  validity  of  our 
knowledge  of  *  things  without  us/  and  an  affirmation  of  tho  validity  of  our 
knowledge  of  facts  of  mind.  Scepticism  has,  and  ever  has  had,  one  formal 
basis,  an  impeachment  of  our  knowledge  of  both  spirit  and  matter.  All 
thinkers,  on  the  other  hand,  who  have  admitted  the  validity  of  our 
knowledge  of  matter  and  spirit,  and  of  time  and  space,  have,  without 
exception,  been  Theists,  and  with  Theism  have  affirmed  the  doctrine  of 
duty  and  immortality.  These  are  all  the  systems  that  ever  have  arisen, 
and  they  have  all,  Theism  excepted,  ever  since  mind  began  to  philosophize 


336  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

taken  on,  the  same  essential  forms,  and  been  developed  in  fixed  accord- 
ance with  the  same  identical  methods.  When  we  have  comprehended 
the  Materialism  of  Kanada,  of  the  Djainas,  and  of  the  Buddhists,  we  have 
discovered  all  that  we  can  find  in  the  systems  of  Democritus,  Epicurus, 
Compte,  and  Condillac.  The  Ideal  s^'stems  of  Kant,  Fichte,  Schelling, 
and  Hegel  are  mere  repetitions,  without  any  essential  improvements  what- 
ever, of  those  of  Plotinus,  Parmenides,  Pythagoras,  Yayasa,  Kapila,  and 
those  of  the  two  Idealistic  schools  of  the  Buddhists.  Nor  have  modern 
Sceptics  changed  or  in  any  essential  forms  improved  the  systems  of 
Protagoras,  Pyrrho,  and  Carneades.  The  problems,  methods,  and  solu- 
tions common  to  any  one  of  these  schools  in  any  one  age,  are  equally 
common  to  them  in  all  ages.  From  the  nature  of  the  case  such  must  be 
the  results.  In  Theism  there  has  been  progression,  because  evidence  and 
arguments  in  new  forms  have  been  constantly  presenting  themselves. 

Tbb  Systems  present  or  wanting  ix  the  Grecian,  and  common  or 
PECULIAR  TO  Oriental  and  Modern  Schools. 

In  comparing  the  Grecian  and  the  Oriental  Schools  with  the  Modern 
Evolution  we  obtain  the  following  results.  We  find,  as  we  have 
formerly  stated,  two  systems.  Theism  and  Scepticism,  which  are  not 
found  in  the  Oriental,  present  in  the  Modern  Evolution.  We  find 
also  two  systems.  Ideal  Dualism  and  Subjective  Idealism,  wanting 
in  the  Greek,  and  common  to  the  other  two  Evolutions.  Subjective 
Idealism  is  naturally  so  remote  from  the  sphere  of  spontaneous  and 
reflective  thought,  and  was  originally  developed  at  such  a  distance 
from  Greece,  that  as  a  system,  we  have  no  evidence  that  it  was  ever, 
either  historically  or  reflectively,  present  in  the  mind  of  any  Grecian 
thinker. 

In  the  presence  of  the  same  identical  postulate,  on  the  authority  of 
which  Ideal  Dualism  took  form  in  Oriental  and  Modern  Anti-theistic 
thought,  Scepticism  was  originated  and  took  form  in  Grecian  thought. 
The  fundamental  postulate  of  the  former  system  is  this,  '  that  the  things 
which  we  envisage  are  not  that  in  themselves  for  which  we  take  them, 
neither  are  their  relationships  so  constituted  as  they  appear  to  us,  in 
other  words,  that  we  have  no  valid  knowledge  of  mind  or  matter,  time  or 
space.  In  the  presence  of  this  postulate,  Oriental  and  German  thought  dog- 
matized, and  in  their  dogmatism  constructed  a  positive  system  of  Ontology, 
namely,  that  there  exist  iwo  unknown  and  unknowable  entities — Noumena, 
as  the  substances  and  principles  of  all  things.  Grecian  thought  was  too 
discriminating  to  fall  into  such  an  absurdity  as  that.  If,  as  Ideal  Dualism 
afl&rms,  we  '  know  nothing  of  realities  but  our  manner  of  perceiving  them,' 
if  ours  is  a  mode  of  perception  *  peculiar  to  us,  and  need  not  be  the  same  in 


NEO'PLATOmSM.  337 


any  other  class  of  beings,'  and  if  it  is  only  with  this  peculiar  and  special 
'  mode  of  perceiving  we  have  to  do,'  the  only  formula  which  can  have 
authority  with  us  is  the  old  sceptical  one — to  wit,  *  I  assert  nothing,  and 
deny  nothing,  not  even  that  I  deny  anything.'  For  philosophers  to  ^•^y 
down  the  principle  that  all  our  knowledge  of  realities  is  mere  appearance, 
and  *  that  the  reality  existing  behind  all  appearance  is,  and  ever  must  be, 
unknown,'  and  then  to  set  forth,  as  having  claim  to  validity,  a  system  of 
Ontology,  is  simply  to  convict  themselves  before  the  world,  not  only  of 
the  grossest  scientific  absurdity,  but  also  of  an  absolute  disbelief  in  the 
validity  of  their  own  fundamental  principle. 

On  the  score  of  scientific  self-consistency,  Grecian  stands  in-  most 
impressive  contrast  with  Modern  Scepticism.  The  former  system  has 
one  obvious  merit — the  absence  of  Dogmatism ;  while  no  system  ever  was, 
or  can  be,  more  repulsively  and  imperiously  dogmatic  than  the  latter. 
The  former  had  but  one  form  of  dogmatism  in  common  with  the  latter, 
the  professed  power  to  iprove  that  no  form  of  proof  is  possible.  In  all 
other  respects  (Grecian  Scepticism  is  logically  self-consistent..  Modern 
Scepticism,  on  the  other  hand,  seems  to  regard  absolute  and  universal 
nescience  of  all  forms  and  modes  of  real  existence  as  the  condition  and 
starting  point  for  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  universal  being  and  its 
laws.  We  suppose  it  safe  to  affirm  that  no  man  is  a  more  absolute 
Sceptic  in  theory  than  Mr.  Emerson ;  and  it  is  equally  safe  to  affirm  that 
no  man  living  or  dead  is,  or  was,  a  more  sovereign  dogmatist ;  his 
dogmatic  utterances,  also,  having  chief  reference  to  truth  as  it  exists 
*  behind  all  appearance.*  The  same  remarks  have  an  undeniable  applica- 
tion to  the  productions  of  such  authors  as  J.  S.  Mill,  Spencer,  Huxley, 
and  all  other  advocates  of  the  New  Philosophy — a  system  avowedly 
based  upon  the  formula  that  *  it  is  certain  that  we  can  have  no  know- 
ledge of  the  nature  of  mind  or  matter  either.'  On  what  authority,  then, 
does  Mr.  Mill  dogmatically  affirm  that  matter  is  nothing  but  a  permanent. 
susceptibility  of  sensation '  t  If,  as  he  affirms  that  he  does,  he  knows 
nothing  but  phenomena,  how  does  he  know  that  there  does,  or  does  not, 
exist  any  susceptibility  at  all  ?  After  affirming,  as  the  basis  of  all  his 
deductions,  that  '  the  reality  existing  behind  all  appearance  is,  and  ever 
must  be,  unknown,'  Mr.  Spencer  gravely  informs  us  of  the  identical 
'  stuff  that  life  is  made  of,'  and  of  the  specific  elements  which  constitute  pro- 
gression, and  that  there  can  *  exist  behind  all  appearance '  no  such  power 
as  Free  Will.  If  he  knows  nothing  about  what  realities  exist  behind  all 
appearance,  how  can  he  know,  or  reasonably  affirm,  that  a  Free  Will  does 
not  exist  there?  To  induce  Theists  to  surrender  the  doctrine  of  an 
infinite  and  perfect  personal  God,  Mr.  Spencer  dogmatizes  thus — *  the 
choice  is  not  between  personality  and  something  lower  than  personality, 
whereas  the  choice  is  between  personality  and  soiuetliiug  higher.'     Here 

22 


33S  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

is  absolute  dogmatism  about  what  the  author  affirms  absolute  ignorance. 
'Is  it  not,'  he  adds,  'just  as  possible  that  there  is  a  mode  of  being  as 
much  transcending  Intelligence  and  ^YiIl,  as  these  transcend  mechanical 
motion  V  For  ourselves,  we  have  no  idea  that  Mr.  Spencer  himself 
seriously  thinks  that  there  can  possibly  be  a  mode  of  being  as  far  above 
an  infinite  and  perfect  personal  God  as  He  is  above  mere  mechanical 
motion.  Our  serious  judgment  is  that  he  deliberately  intended  to  test 
the  question,  by  actual  experiment,  how  far  credulity  among  Theists 
would  descend  with  him  into  the  abyss  of  absurdity.  Mr.  Spencer  is 
too  much  of  a  thinker  to  imagine  even  that  there  can  possibly  be  a  mode 
of  being  infinitely  above  that  of  infinite  and  perfect  Intelligence  and 
Will.  Our  object,  however,  is  to  illustrate  by  examples,  the  dogmatism 
of  Modern  Scepticism. 

Let  us  for  a  moment  contemplate  a  few  other  examples  of  the  same 
character.  Mr.  Huxley,  having  assured  us  that  'it  is  certain  that  we  can 
have  no  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  either  matter  or  spirit,'  '  proposes  to 
demonstrate  to  us  that  a  unity  of  power  or  faculty,  a  unity  of  form,  and  a 
unity  of  substantial  composition  does  pervade  the  whole  living  world.' 
Here  we  are,  in  fact  and  form,  promised  absuhite  demonstration  in  the 
sphere  of  affirmed  and  admitted  absolute  ignorance.  Yes,  our  author 
promises  to  demonstrate  the  existence  of  '  a  unity  of  substantial  compo- 
sition '  in  bodies,  while  he  himself,  in  the  same  address,  affirms  '  that  it 
is  also,  in  strictness,  true  that  we  know  nothing  about  the  composition  of 
any  body  whatever  as  it  is.'  While  he  affirms  an  absolute  ignorance  of 
the  nature  of  matter  and  spirit,  he  affirms,  as  dogmatically,  that  matter, 
and  not  spirit,  thinks  and  feels  and  wills.  '  Thoughts  are  the  expression 
of  molecular  changes  in  that  matter  of  life  which  is  the  source  of  our 
other  vital  phenomena.'  Again,  '  as  surely  as  every  future  grows  out  of 
past  and  present,  so  will  the  physiology  of  the  future  gradually  extend 
the  realm  of  matter  and  law  until  it  is  co-extensive  with  knowledge,  with 
feeling,  and  with  action.'  Here  dogmatism,  resting  upon  admitted  absolute 
ignorance  of  the  subject  matter  to  which  that  dogmatism  pertains,  has 
undeniably  reached  its  consummation. 

In  Taine  '  On  Intelligence ' — a  work  of  another  zealous  advocate  of  the 
New  Philosophy  which,  as  we  have  said,  affirms  as  its  basis  and  starting 
point  absolute  nescience  of  matter  and  spirit — we  have  '  a  general  and 
abstract  psychology'  in  which  all  facts  of  mind  are  dogmatically  explained 
on  the  Molecular  Theory.  If  we  '  can  know  nothing  of  the  nature  of 
either  spirit  or  matter,'  how  can  we  know,  we  ask  again,  that  it  is  matter 
and  not  spirit  which  knows  and  feels  and  acts  1  How  can  we  know  that 
*  molecular  changes  in  this  matter  of  life '  constitute  any  single  element  of 
mental  phenomena  1  Yet  in  affirmed  ignorance  of  the  nature  and  relations 
of  matter  and  spirit,  these  self-styled  Scientists,  or  Knowing  Ones,  not 


NEO-PLATONISM.  339 

only  affirm  that  matter  does  think  and  feel  and  will,  but  dogmatically 
tell  just  how  and  why  and  where  it  performs  these  functions.  *  Memory,* 
we  are  told  by  a  central  light  in  the  high  firmament  of  the  New 
Philosophy,  '  is  fossil  precepts.'  '  I  hold,'  says  another  of  these  scientists 
of  equal  eminence,  'emotion  to  mean  the  special  sensibility  of  the 
vesicular  neurine  to  ideas.'  'The  highest  functions  of  the  nervous 
system,  those  to  which  the  hemispherical  ganglia  minister,'  says  the  same 
authority,  *  are  the  functions  of  intelligence,  of  emotion,  and  of  will.' 
After  giving  forth  a  multitude  of  such  lucid  utterances,  our  author,  in 
common  with  all  advocates  of  this  New  Philosophy,  affirms  an  absolute 
ignorance  of  the  nature  of  the  substances  about  which  he  thus  imperiously 
dogmatizes. 

Now  Grecian  Scepticism,  with  the  exception  above  designated,  cannot 
he  charged  with  such  gross  and  palpable  forms  of  self-contradiction  and 
absurdity.  It  never  asserted  an  absolute  ignorance  of  'realities  which 
exist  behind  all  appearance,'  and  then  imperiously  affirmed, '  I  Iznoic  facts, 
and  I  know  law,'  law  which,  undeniably,  exists  '  behind  all  appearances,' 
and  determines  their  character.  Of  all  systems  that  ever  appeared, 
Modern  Scepticism,  or  the  New  Philosophy,  is  the  most  pretentious,  im- 
perious, and  absolute  in  its  dogmatisms,  and  the  most  shallow  and 
sophistical  in  its  '  grounds  and  arguments.'  It  has  made  a  great  stir  and 
agitation  in  the  sphere  of  Anglo-Saxon  thought.  Yet  when  the  true 
state  of  the  case  comes  to  light,  it  is  found  that  we  have  had  nothing 
*  but  a  tempest  in  a  mud-puddle.' 

In  What  Sense  and  Form  was  Grecian  Philosophy  Introduotort 

TO  Christianity? 
The  question  has  often  been  presented,  whether  Grecian  Philosophy 

,in  its  results  was,  or  was  not,  introductory  to  Christianity  ?      We  should 

'  leave  this  treatise  in  an  incomplete  state  did  we  not  speak  specifically 
upon  this  subject.  We  propose,  then,  to  present  the  mature  deductions 
bearing  upon  this  inquiry,  deductions  to  which  real  facts  of  history  have 

,  conducted  us. 

1  In  one  fundamental  respect  the  Grecian  Evolution  was  a  great  impediment 
rather  than  an  introduction  to  Christianity.  In  the  sphere  of  scientific 
and  popular  thought  that  Evolution  had  determined  no  one  doctrine  or 
principle  of  Theism.  It  had  failed  utterly  in  popular  regard  to  establish 
upon  a  scientific  basis  the  doctrine  of  the  existence  of  a  Supreme  God,  or 
of  the  immortality  of  the  souL  In  all  the  popular  philosophies  which 
ha<i  place  in  scientific  thought  at  the  commencement  of  the  Christian  era, 
these  doctrines  were  specifically  denied.  Never  was  philosophic  thought 
in  a  more  chaotic  state  than  it  was  at  the  time  when  '  the  Sun  of  Righteous- 
ness rose  upuu  the  world  with  healing   in  His  wings.'     Nor  did   the 

22—2 


340  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

existing  direction  of  scientific  thought  promise  anything  better  for  the 
future.  Christianity  in  its  early  development,  on  the  other  hand,  stood 
out  before  the  world  in  open  antagonism  to  the  then  received  pbilo- 
Bophies. 

Yet  Grecian  Philosophy,  while  it  had  fully  demonstrated  in  popular 
regard  its  own  utter  impotence  to  solve  the  problem  of  being  and  its 
laws,  did  exert  an  influence  auxiliary  to  the  Christian  religion.  We  will 
now  proceed  to  designate  what  we  regard  as  some  of  the  forms  of  this 
influence. 

1.  One  of  the  most  important  of  these  propi3edeutic  forms  of  influence 
arose  from  the  fact  that  the  conflicting  schools  of  Greece  held,  in  their  dis- 
cussions, afiirmations,  and  denials,  the  doctrines  of  God,  duty,  well-being, 
immortality,  and  retribution,  distinctly  and  constantly  before  the  educated 
and  popular  classes.  On  all  these  subjects  Christianity  propounded  no 
new  themes,  and  solved  no  new  problems.  Former  and  existi««i%;  discussions 
and  failures  had  induced  a  general  desire  for  reliable  solutions  of  all  such 
questions.  "When  Christianity  presented  such  solutions,  the  popular 
mind  had,  in  the  discussions  referred  to,  been  prepared  to  receive  them. 
Though  Grecian  thought  had  not  sown  the  truth,  it  had  prepared  the 
soil  to  receive  the  seed  where  sown  upon  it. 

2.  One  great  advantage  which  the  early  learned  defenders  of  Christian 
doctrines  of  God,  duty,  and  immortality,  possessed,  lay  in  the  fact  that 
their  teachings  on  these  high  themes  were  confirmed,  not  only  by  the 
intuitive  convictions  of  the  race,  but  by  the  highest  authorities  in  tiie 
sphere  of  Grecian  thought,  the  authority  and  arguments  of  such  minds  as 
Thales,  Anaxagoras,  Empedocles,  Xenophanes,  Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aris- 
totle. Of  such  authority  learned  advocates  of  Christian  doctrine  made 
great  use,  and  justly  so,  in  their  presentations  of  truth  to  the  educated 
and  popular  classes.  Here  is  the  source  of  the  most  efficient  influences  of 
Grecian  thought  as  auxiliary  to  Christianity. 

3.  In  most  of  the  Schools  of  Greece  fundamental  criteria  of  truth  had 
been  developed,  criteria  in  the  light  of  which  the  great  central  doctrines 
of  Christianity  stood  revealed  as  demonstrated  verities  of  science.  Almost 
nothing  else  had  greater  influence  in  the  hands  of  learned  Christian 
teachers  than  the  application  of  these  criteria.  In  their  light  these 
teachers  were  able  to  demonstrate  the  fact  that  the  essential  doctrines 
and  principles  of  Christianity  must  be  true,  or  the  Intelligence  itself 
must  be  affirmed  to  be  a  lie.  Thus,  while  Grecian  Philosophy  was  not 
itself  *  the  light  of  the  world,'  it  became  a  hindrance  on  the  one  hand, 
and  an  auxiliary  on  the  other,  to  that  light. 


PART    IIL 

BOOK    L 

THE  CHRISTIAN  EVOLUTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY. 

Among  thinkers  the  impression  very  commonly  obtains,  and  we  often 
meet  with  statements  to  the  same  eflFect,  particularly  in  treatises  on  the 
History  of  Philosophy,  that  the  writers  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments 
held  and  taught  no  system  of  Philosophy — that  they  simply  taught 
doctrines,  or  facts,  without  any  specific  reference  to  questions  of  Ontology, 
or  [Jltimate  Causation.  In  certain  respects  such  statements  are  true,  and 
in  others,  of  equal  importance,  they  are  far  from  being  true.  In  the 
multitudinous  writings  of  Plato  we  find  no  systematic  statement  of 
truth.  The  careful  readers  of  these  writings,  however,  find  everywhere 
underlying  the  same  certain  great  principles  which  may  readily  be  aggre- 
gated into  a  system.  The  same  holds  true  of  the  Scriptures.  Underlying 
all  their  teachings  we  find  all  the  ultimate  truths  and  principles  which 
can  be  reached  by  science.  Here  we  find  a  distinct  hypothesis  of  Ultimate 
Causation — an  equally  well-defined  doctrine  of  Cosmology — all  the  prin- 
ciples of  fundamental  morality — and  a  doctrine  equally  well  defined  of 
the  eternal  future  of  mind.  We  propose  to  notice  and  set  forth  the 
specific  teachings  of  the  Bible  on  these  varied  themeai 

SECTION  L 

DOCTRINE,  OR  HYPOTHESIS,  OF  ULTIMATE  CAUSATION. 

This  hypothesis  is  distinctly  stated  by  the  Apostle  (Heb.  xi.  3),  *  Through 
faith  we  understand  that  the  worlds  were  made  by  the  word  of  God,  so 
that  things  which  are  seen  were  not  made  of  things  which  do  appear.' 
Here  the  Theistic  hypothesis  of  Ultimate  Causation  is  distinctly  set  forth 
both  in  its  positive  and  negative  forms.  Positively,  it  is  affirmed  that  the 
universe  as  now  revealed  to  us  took  its  existing  form  as  the  result  of 
THE  wuBD,  act  of  will,  or  creative  fiat,  of  God.     This  is  but  a  restatement 


A  CRITICAL  HIS  TORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


iti  another  form  of  the  doctrine  set  forth  in  Gen.  i.  1,  *In  the  beginning, 
God  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth.'  In  other  words,  -when  thH 
universe  w^as  originated  *  the  heavens  and  the  earth,'  that  is  the  entire 
universe,  became  an  orderly  and  organized  whole  as  the  result  of  tho 
creative  agency  of  God.  Then  the  sacred  writer  descends  to  particulars, 
and  ascribes  the  organization  of  *  the  heavens  and  the  earth,'  the  world 
on  which  we  live,  together  with  the  sun,  the  moon,  and  the  stars,  and 
the  existence  of  all  vitalized  forms  of  being  around  us,  to  the  will  of 
God.  *  He  spake,  and  it  was  done  :  He  commanded,  and  it  stood  fast,' 
that  is,  He  wilUd  that  things  should  be  thus,  and  so,  and  they  took  form 
accordingly.  The  doctrine  of  creation  in  its  entireness  as  the  exclusive 
result  of  the  agency  of  ths  will  of  a  personal  God,  is  the  specific  hypo- 
thesis of  Ultimate  Causation  set  forth  in  the  sacred  Scriptures. 

In  its  negative  form  the  doctrine  of  creation  through  the  will  of  a  per- 
sonal God  is  set  forth  in  direct  and  specific  opposition  to  the  dogmas  of 
heathen  and  Auti-theistic  philosophies.  The  united  teaching  of  all  sys- 
tems then  taught  was  organization  by  natural  law,  or  the  development,  or 
evolution,  of  '  things  seen  from  things  which  appear,'  that  is,  from  pre- 
existing natural  conditions.  The  whole  passage  is  thus  literally  rendered 
by  Conybeare  and  Howson  :  *  By  faith  we  understand  that  the  universe  was 
framed  by  the  word  of  God,  so  that  the  world  which  we  behold  springs 
not  from  things  which  can  be  seen.'  *  The  doctrine  negatived,'  they  cor- 
rectly say,  *  is  that  which  teaches  that  each  successive  condition  of  the 
universe  is  generated  from  a  preceding  condition  (as  the  plant  from  the 
seed)  by  a  mere  natural  development,  which  had  no  beginning  in  the  will 
of  God.'  If  we  will  carefully  study  the  teachings  of  the  Scriptures  in 
respect  to  the  doctrine  of  creation,  we  shall  find  that  not  only  is  the 
organization  of  the  universe  ascribed  to  the  direct  and  immediate  agency 
of  God,  but  also  the  origination  of  every  species  of  animals  and  plant& 
Moses,  who  was  '  learned  in  all  the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians,'  understood 
fully  all  the  Oriental  Philosopliies.  The  common  doctrine  of  all  these 
systems  was  creation  by  emanation,  or  the  development  of  all  particular 
species  from  preceding  ones  of  a  lower  type.  Creation  by  natural  law,  by 
emanation,  development,  or  evolution,  was  the  common  doctrine  of  all  these 
philosophies  in  aU  their  forms.  In  opposition  to  such  philosophies  we  are 
informed  that  'in  the  beginning,'  not  natural  law,  but  '  God  created  the 
heavens  and  the  earth.'  The  sacred  writer  then"  descends  to  particulars, 
and  affirms  that  in  the  origin  of  animals  and  plants  the  agency  of  God 
Avas  just  as  direct  and  immediate  as  it  was  in  the  creation  of  the  universe, 
that  all  orders  of  vitalized  existence  were  so  organized  at  the  beginning 
that  each  species  should  immutably  propagate  its  kind,  and  not  evolve 
itself  into  something  higher,  or  diverse  from  its  own  kind,  'the  fruit- tree 
yielding  fruit  after  his  kind,  whose  seed  is  in  itself.'     '  And  God  made 


DOCTRINE,  OR  HYPOTHESIS,  OF  ULTIMATE  CAUSATION.,   343 

the  beast  after  his  kind,  and  cattle  after  their  kinJ,  and  every  thing 
that  creepeth  upon  the  earth  after  his  kiiii'  Nothing  can  be  more 
evident  than  is  the  deduction,  that  at  the  beginning,  species  were 
originated,  and  not  embryotic  forms  whicli  should  evolve  themselves 
into  species  endlessly  diversified.  Then,  as  if  to  anticipate  the 
modern  monkey  hypothesis,  man  is  affirmed  to  have  been  created,  and 
located  at  his  creation  in  a  definite  region  of  the  earth  where  monkeys 
have  never  existed.  Taking  into  our  reckoning  not  particular  words 
merely,  but  the  whole  account  of  the  organization  of  the  Universe  given 
in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  and  the  deduction  is  absolute,  that  the 
fixed  intention  of  its  author  was  to  present  the  revealed  doctrine  of  creation 
throughout,  in  direct  and  open  opposition  to  the  teachings  of  the  ungodly 
religions  and  godless  philosophies  of  all  prior  ages,  and  this,  not  in  their 
principles  merely,  but  also  in  all  theii  details.  The  conclusion  is  undeni- 
able that  Darwin  or  Moses  has  fundamentally  erred.  No  explanation 
can  be  given  of  the  peculiar  phrases  '  after  his  kind,'  and  *  whose  seed  is 
in  itself,*  but  upon  the  hypothesis  that  the  specific  intent  of  the  sacred 
writer  was  to  deny  the  doctrines  of  emanation  and  development,  or  evolu- 
tion, which  were  the  fundamental  characteristics  of  all  the  great  systems 
of  religion  and  philosophy  then  existing. 

The  Doctrine  op  Providence. 

Equally  specific  is  the  Doctrine  of  Providence  taught  in  the  Scriptures. 
God  as  here  revealed  is  not  only  '  the  former  of  all  things,'  but  exercises 
a  direct  and  immediate  providential  control  over  *  the  things  that  are 
made,'  the  will  of  God  being  the  supremela-w  of  the  universe,  the  wants  of 
mind  the  end  for  which  all  material  objects  exist  and  are  controlled.  God 
is  also  distinctly  revealed  as  present  amid  passing  events  around  us,  so 
that  He  is  to  His  rational  off"spring,  relative  to  their  moral  and  physical 
necessities,  a  hearer  of  prayer.  Every  intelligent  reader  of  the  Scriptures 
is  aware  that  the  above  statements  perfectly  accord  with  the  plainest  and 
most  express  teachings  of  the  Sacred  Word.  All  the  facts  of  order  which 
everywhere  appear,  all  the  movements  of  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars,  sun- 
shine and  darkness,  and  all  events  of  all  the  seasons,  are  revealed  as  deter- 
mined by  the  will  of  God.  In  express  reference  to  sickness  and  health, 
rain  and  sunshine,  and  all  our  daily  concernments,  prayer  is  affirmed  to  be 
of  great  avail. 

Eelations  of  the  above  Doctrines  to  Science. 

Such,  undeniably,  are  the  Theistic  teachings  of  Scripture  on  the  subjects 
before  us.  What  are  the  relations  of  these  doctrines  to  science  1  To  this 
question  we  answer: 

1.  All  events  which  are,  or  may  be  known  to  science,  are  fully  explic- 
able on  this  hypothesis.     The  doctrine  of  a  free,  intelligent, personal  Gud, 


344  ^  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

infinite  and  perfect  in  all  His  attributes,  fully  explains  the  organization  of 
the  existing  universe,  with  all  the  facts  and  events  which  it  presents.  If 
the  facts  of  geology,  for  example,  facts  which  are  supposed  to  favour  the 
doctrine  of  Evolution,  can  be  explained  in  accordance  with  that  hypo- 
thesis, they  cannot  be  shown  to  contradict  th§  doctrine  of  the  origina- 
tion of  species  by  the  direct  and  immediate  agency  of  God.  The  facts,  to 
say  the  least,  are  just  as  explicable  on  the  latter  as  on  the  former  hypo- 
thesis. The  same  holds  true  of  all  facts  and  events  known  to  science 
throughout  the  wide  domain  of  universal  nature.  All  such  facts  and 
event  are  undeniably  explicable  through  the  doctrine  of  a  personal  God. 
If  visible  and  conscious  facts  do  not  affirm,  they  do  not  contradict  the 
doctrine  of  Providence  and  of  the  efficacy  of  prayer.  All  that  the  Bible 
teaches  in  respect  to  creation,  providence,  prayer,  miracles,  and  we  may 
add,  redemption,  also  appears  as  possible  and  fully  explicable  facts  and 
events  through  the  cause  which  it  assigns  for  all  these  facts.  In  Natural 
Theism,  and  in  that  of  the  Scriptures,  we  have,  we  repeat,  an  hypothesis, 
in  accordance  with  which  all  events  known  to  science  as  possible  in 
the  nature  of  things  may  be  fully  explained  and  elucidated.  There  is  no 
denying  this  deduction. 

2.  This  fact,  we  remark  in  the  next  place,  renders  absolutely  impos- 
sible all  disproof  of,  and  positive  evidence,  or  even  antecedent  probability, 
against  this  hypothesis,  on  the  one  hand,  and  all  forms  of  proof,  evidence, 
or  even  probability  in  favour  of  any  contradictory  hypothesis  on  the  other. 
All  that  can  be  done  in  any  conceivable  case  in  favour  of  the  hypothesis 
of  Natural  Law,  Emanation,  Development,  or  Evolution,  would  be  to 
prove,  not  that  such  hypothesis  is  in  fact  true,  but  that  it  may  be  true, 
that  is,  that  in  accordance  with  it  existing  facts  are  explicable.  As  long 
as  the  same  facts  remain  equally  explicable  on  a  different  and  opposite 
hypothesis,  all  disproof  of  the  latter,  and  proof,  positive  evidence,  or  even 
antecedent  probability,  in  favour  of  the  former,  remain  strictly  impossible. 
The  reader  should  bear  in  mind  that  while  modern  Scientists  talk  so 
loftily  of  the  science  of  Emanation,  Development,  and  Evolution,  they  are 
dogmatizing  in  respect  to  hypotheses  which  by  no  possibility  can  attain 
to  the  prerogative  of  science,  hypotheses  in  favour  of  which  no  possible 
form  of  real  proof,  positive  evidence,  or  antecedent  probability,  can  be 
adduced.  Granting  all  the  facts  adduced  by  Mr.  Darwin  and  other 
Evolutionists,  for  example,  said  facts  do  not  prove  this  hypothesis  even 
probably  true.  The  reason  is  obvious  and  undeniable.  Said  facts  are  all, 
to  say  the  least,  equahy  explicable  on  the  hypothesis  of  the  origination 
of  species  by  the  direct  and  immediate  agency  of  God.  The  same  holds 
true  in  all  other  cases.  The  hypothesis  of  ultimate  and  universal  causa- 
tion alfirmed  by  Natural  and  Eevealed  Theism  accounts  fully  for  all  facts 
and  events  in  the  univeise.    No  form  of  disproof,  positive  evidence,  or 


DOCTRINE^  OR  HYPOTHESIS,  OF  ULTIMATE  CAUSATTOIT.     345 

antecedent  probability  can  by  any  possibility,  we  repeat,  be  adduced  against 
this,  and  in  favour  of  any  opposing  hypothesis. 

3.  While  it  ever  must  remain  true  that  upon  no  conditions,  actual  or 
conceivable,  can  the  doctrine  of  natural  and  revealed  Theism  be  dis- 
proved, or  any  real  proof,  evidence,  or  antecedent  probability  be  adduced 
in  favour  of  any  opposite  hypothesis,  the  common  deduction  of  all  the 
sciences  bearing  at  all  upon  the  subject,  render  the  former  hypothesis  a 
demonstrated  truth,  and  the  latter,  in  all  its  forms,  a  demonstrated  error. 
There  is  not  a  science  that  has  the  remotest  bearing  upon  the  doctrine  of 
ultimate  causation,  a  science  which  does  not  culminate  in  the  deduction  of 
the  organization  of  the  universe  as  an  event  of  time.  There  is  no  doctrine 
in  which  the  final  deductions  of  all  such  sciences,  and  the  admissions  of 
all  eminent  scientists  of  all  schools,  more  absolutely  agree,  than  they  do 
in  the  hypothesis  of  the  non-eternity  of  the  present  order  of  things. 
Universal  order  from  universal  chaos  is  demonstrably  explicable  by  no 
hypothesis  of  natural  law.  Universal  order  from  any  law  of  nature,  or 
any  necessary  cause,  order  as  an  event  of  time,  can  no  more  be  accounted 
for  than  the  existence  of  an  event  without  a  cause.  A  necessary  cause, 
whatever  its  nature,  must  act  as  soon  as  the  conditions  of  its  activity  are 
fulfilled.  The  conditions  of  the  activity  of  the  ultimate  cause  of  these 
facts  must  have  been  fulfilled  from  eternity,  or  said  cause  would  not  be 
the  uUiijiate.  That  cause,  on  the  other  hand,  which  fulfilled  these  con- 
ditions would  be  said  cause.  Creation  as  an  event  of  time ;  creation 
through  any  natural  law,  or  necessary  cause  of  any  kind,  is  a  palpable 
contradiction.  A  free  cause,  on  the  other  hand,  may  or  may  not  act  in 
any  given  direction  when  the  conditions  of  its  activity  are  fulfilled. 
Hence  creation  from  such  a  cause,  creation  as  an  event  of  time,  is  both 
possible  and  explicable.  Either  the  final  deduction  of  universal  science 
is  utterly  false,  or  the  Theistic  and  Christian  hypothesis  of  ultimate 
causation  is  true. 

4.  This  common  deduction  of  all  the  sciences,  viz.,  creation  as  an  event  of 
time,  not  only  demonstrates  the  validity  of  the  Theistic  hypothesis,  but 
utterly  annihilates  all  objections  to  the  doctrine  of  supernatural  events  as 
recorded  in  Scripture,  and  to  the  revealed  doctrine  of  Providence,  and  of 
God  in  nature  as  a  hearer  of  prayer.  Either  science,  itself,  is  a  lie,  or  crea- 
tion is  a  supernatural  event,  and  the  occurrence  of  such  events  in  nature 
is  both  possible  and  probable.  ^Nothing  is,  or  can  be,  at  a  greater  remove 
from  the  domain  of  true  science  than  the  boasted  ^Naturalism  of  the  present 
and  all  past  ages.  These  scientists  never  have  adduced,  and  never  can 
adduce,  a  single  fact  which  presents  the  remotest  degree  of  real  proof, 
positive  evidence,  or  antecedent  probability,  in  favour  of  any  one  of  their 
godless  hypotheses  The  fundamental  fallacy  in  the  reasoning  of  all  these 
scientists  is  this,  that  a  given  hypothesis  may  be  proven  true  by  facts  which 


346  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

are  equally  explicable  on  a  different  and  opposite  hypothesis.  Take  any  fact, 
or  class  of  faots,  ever  adduced  by  any  of  these  scientists  to  prove  any  one 
of  his  godless  hypotheses,  and  place  that  fact,  or  class  of  fact?,  in  the  clear 
light  of  scientitic  induction  and  deduction,  and  the  conclusion  becomes  at 
once  demonstrably  evident,  that  said  fact,  or  class  of  facts,  is  just  as  com- 
patible with,  and  explicable  by,  the  hypothesis  which  he  denies,  as  with 
and  by  that  which  he  affirms.  True  science  does  and  must  affirm  his 
proofs  to  be  no  proofs,  his  evidence  to  be  no  evidence  at  all,  and  his  pro- 
babilities to  be  nothing  but  improbabilities.  The  real  facts  of  the  case 
can  by  no  possibility,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  be  otherwise, 

SECTION"  IL 

ONTOLOGY  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

In  the  Scriptures  also  we  have  a  distinct  recognition  of  the  doctrine  of 
Ontology  as  developed  in  this  Treatise,  that  of  the  real  existence  of  four 
distinct  and  separate  realities,  namely,  Matter,  Spirit,  Time,  and  Space. 
The  terms  everlasting,  or  eternity,  and  immensity  represent  the  last 
two  realities ;  while  the  terms  earth,  or  dust,  and  spirit  represent  the  two 
jfirst  designated. 

Nothing  can  be  more  distinct,  definite,  and  specific  than  is  the  distinc- 
tion made  in  the  Scriptures  between  matter  and  spirit,  and  the  soul  and 
the  body.  *Then,'  says  the  sacred  writer,  'shall  the  dust  return  to  the 
earth  as  it  was,  and  the  spirit  shall  return  unto  God  who  gave  it.'  Here 
the  body  is  clearly  affirmed  to  be  material,  and  the  spirit  to  be  immaterial. 
The  exact  meaning  of  the  passage  may  be  thus  expressed:  *Then  shall 
the  dust '  (that  part  of  man  which  is  material)  '  return  unto  the  earth  as 
it  was,  and  the  spirit '  (that  part  of  man  which  is  not  matter)  '  will  return 
to  God  who  gave  it.'  The  same  distinction  is  most  fully  presented  in  the 
New  Testament.  *  Man,'  we  are  informed,  *  may  kill  the  body,  but 
cannot  kill  the  soul.'  The  body  is  represented  as  a  house,  tabernacle,  or 
tent,  and  the  spirit  as  the  occupant.  The  Scriptures  make  the  same  dis- 
tinction between  spirit  and  matter,  the  body  and  the  soul,  that  all  man- 
kind do  between  a  house  and  its  occupants.  The  spirit  of  the  believer, 
*  while  at  home  in  the  body,'  is  affirmed  to  be  *  absent  from  the  Lord,' 
and  when  'absent  from  the  body,'  to  be  *  present  with  the  Lord.'  During 
life  the  soul  is  affirmed  to  '  abide  in  the  flesh,'  or  the  body,  and  at  death, 
not  to  die  with,  but  to  *  depart '  from  the  body.  Nothing  can  be  more 
manifest  than  is  the  distinction  made  in  the  Scriptures  between  matter 
and  spirit,  and  the  recognition  of  both  as  distinct  and  separate  entities. 

With  the  same  distinctness  is  the  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the 
soul  presented  in  the  Scriptures.  *  We  know  that  if  our  earthly  house 
of  this  tabernacle  were  dissolved,  we  have  a  building  of  God,  an  house 


ONTOLOGY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  347 

not  made  with  bauds,  eterxal  in  the  heavens.'  *  Then  shall  we  be  for- 
ever with  the  Lord.'  'Neither  shall  they  die  any  more.'  No  intelligent 
reader  of  the  Bible  doubts  that  according  to  its  express  revelations  the 
future  being  of  the  soul  is  coeval  with  *  the  eternal  years  of  God.' 

With  similar  distinctness,  also,  is  the  future  of  the  soul  revealed  as  a 
state  of  retribution.  *  It  is  appointed  unto  men  once  to  die,  but  after 
this  the  judgment.'  'We  shall  all  stand  before  the  judgment-seat  of 
Christ.'  *  For  we  must  all  appear  before  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ ; 
that  every  one  may  receive  the  things  done  in  his  body,  according  to  that 
he  hath  done,  whether  it  be  good  or  bad.'  'These  shall  go  away  into 
everlasting  punishment,  but  the  righteous  into  life  eternal.'  *  He  hath 
appointed  a  day  in  which  He  will  judge  the  world  in  righteousness.'  In 
the  opening  revelation  of  the  soul's  eternity,  God  is  revealed  as  *  the 
Judge  of  all.'  The  united  consent  of  the  ages  fully  verifies  the  correct- 
ness of  the  interpretation  which  we  have  given  of  the  teachings  of  the 
Scriptures  in  respect  to  the  doctrines  now  under  consideration.  The 
exceptions  are  too  few  to  weaken  at  all  this  verification. 

Relations  of  Science  to  the  Doctrine  of  Scriptural  Ontohgy. 

No  candid  reader  of  the  Bible  will  deny  that  we  have  correctly  stated 
its  doctrine  of  Ontology.  The  question  which  now  arises  pertains  to  the 
relations  of  the  deductions  of  science  to  this  doctrine.  On  this  subject 
we  remark : 

1.  All  facts  known  to  science,  and  all  relations  of  such  facts,  are 
absolutely  compatible  with,  and  explicable  by,  this  doctrine.  If  we 
postulate  the  actual  existence  of  the  four  realities  under  consideration — 
to  wit.  Matter  and  Spirit,  Time  and  Space,  there  is  not  a  fact  or  event  in 
the  wide  domain  of  nature — a  fact  or  event  which  is  not  scientifically 
explicable  through  this  postulate.  No  fact  or  event  can  be  conceived  of 
which  is  not  perfectly  explicable  as  an  attribute  or  relation  of  matter  or 
spirit,  and  as  occurring  in  time  or  space.  No  one  who  holds  as  actually 
existing  these  four  realities,  finds  any  occasion  to  go  outside  of  the  same, 
or  to  postulate  any  other  or  different  form  of  being,  to  account  for  any 
event  known  to  science,  or  representable  in  thought.  Take  the  ideas  of 
Matter  and  Spirit,  Time  and  Space,  just  as  they  exist  in  the  Universal 
Intelligence,  and  in  their  light  we  can  give  a  scientific  explanation  of  the 
origin  and  character  of  all  the  sciences  pure  and  mixed,  and  of  all  facta 
and  events  represented  in  human  thought.  No  candid  thinker  will  deny 
the  validity  of  these  statements.  In  the  light  of  these  same  ideas,  and 
of  the  principles  and  laws  of  thought  which  said  ideas  necessarily  imply, 
we  can,  as  we  have  demonstrated  in  former  portions  of  this  Treatise, 
explain  the  origin  and  character  of  all  the  assumptions  and  deductions  of 
false  science^     In  short,  all  forma  of  thought  existing  in  mind,  all  the 


348  ^  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

sciences  true  and  false,  and  all  facts  and  events  known  to  science,  are 
most  fully  explicable  in  the  light  of  the  ideas  and  principles  under  con- 
sideration, 

2.  Such  being  the  undeniable  facts  of  the  case,  disproof  of  the 
ontological  doctrine  of  Scripture  is  an  absolute  impossibility.  Equally 
impossible  is  it,  and  must  it  be,  to  adduce  any  form  of  valid  proof  or 
positive  or  even  probable  evidence  in  favour  of  any  doctrine  of  an 
opposite  nature.  To  accomplish  any  such  result,  we  must,  as  formerly 
shown,  adduce  some  fact  of  the  reality  of  which  we  are,  and  must  be, 
more  certain  than  we  are  of  the  existence  of  each  of  the  four  realities 
under  consideration — a  fact  incompatible  with  the  existence  of  such 
reality.  Every  fact  representable  in  human  thought  must  be  a  property, 
quality,  or  relation  of  Matter,  Spirit,  Time,  or  Space.  As  the  existence 
of  any  one  of  these  realities  does  not  imply  the  non-being  of  any  other, 
no  perceived  or  apprehended  property  of  any  one  of  them  can  imply  the 
non-being  of  its  subject,  or  of  any  other  reality  or  any  of  its  attributes  or 
relations.  How,  then,  can  the  non-reality  of  Matter,  Spirit,  Time,  Space, 
or  the  non-validity  of  our  necessary  apprehensions  of  the  same,  be  an 
object  of  valid  proof?  All  attempts  to  prove  the  doctrines  of  Materialism, 
Idealism,  or  Scepticism,  in  any  of  their  forms,  involve  the  senseless 
endeavour  to  realize  the  demonstiated  impossible.  If  the  advocates  of 
any  one  of  these  dogmas  could  show  that  all  facts  and  events  known  to 
science  are  explicable  on  their  hypothesis,  this  would  merely  prove  said 
hypothesis  to  be  a  possible  truth.  As  long  as  the  same  facts  are  equally 
explicable  on  another  and  opposite  hypothesis,  the  former  can  never  take 
rank  as  a  truth  of  science.  To  talk  of  the  science  of  l^aturalism  iu  any 
of  its  forms,  in  other  words,  to  speak  of  the"  science  of  Materialism, 
Idealism,  Scepticism,  Development,  Evolution,  or  of  any  of  the  deduc- 
tions of  the  New  Philosophy,  is  simply  to  betray  a  fundamental  ignorance 
of  the  nature  of  real  science  itself.  No  hypothesis  which  cannot  be 
scientifically  verified,  no  one,  eppecially,  in  favour  of  which  any  positive 
or  probable  evidence  can  be  adduced,  can  have  a  place  within  the  sphere 
of  true  science. 

Apply  the  principles  under  consideration  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Im- 
mortality of  the  Soul.  By  no  possibility  can  the  materiality  of  the  soul 
be  proved,  no  fact  of  consciousness  or  external  perception  verifying  it  as 
such  a  substance.  The  fact  of  its  immateriality  is,  to  say  the  least,  just 
as  evident  and  probable  in  itself  as  that  of  its  materiality.  The  fact  of 
its  conscious  existence  as  exercising  the  functions  of  thought,  feeling, 
and  voluntary  determination,  removes  absolutely  all  grounds  and  argu- 
ments against  its  future  existence.  We  began  to  think  here.  Why  may 
we  not  continue  to  think  hereafter  1  The  beginning  of  thought,  feeling, 
and  voluntary  determluation  is  just  as  mysterious  oa  is  their  future 


ONTOLOGY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  349 

continuance.  If  the  soul  is  now  in  the  body,  and  not  of  it,  it  may 
continue  to  think,  feel,  and,  act  when  out  of  the  body.  To  prove,  or 
render  even  probable,  the  mortality  of  the  soul,  its  materiality  must  be 
absolutely  verified.  This  can  no  more  be  done  than  can  proof  be  found 
that  scarlet  colour  is  identical  with  the  sound  of  a  trumpet.  All  the 
known  facts  of  the  soul  are,  undeniably,  just  as  compatible  with  its 
immateriality  and  immortality  as  with  its  materiality  and  mortality. 
Hence  all  disproofs  of  the  former,  and  proofs  of  the  latter,  doctrines  are 
absolute  impossibilities.  The  same  holds  true  of  the  Ontology  of  tho 
Bible  in  all  its  forms. 

3.  While  disproof  of  this  Ontology  is  wholly  impossible,  its  truth  aj 
fully  accords  with  the  immutable  intuitions  and  convictions  of  the 
Universal  Intelligence.  *  Mankind  generally,'  says  Alexander  of  Aphro- 
disias,  *  do  not  greatly  err.'  *  In  any  matter  whatever,'  says  Cicero,  *  the 
consent  of  all  nations  is  to  be  reckoned  a  law  of  nature.'  That  which 
accords  with  the  universal  and  necessary  intuitions  and  convictions  of  the 
race  must  be  an  immutable  law  of  nature,  that  is,  of  universal  mind,  or 
we  have  no  means  of  determining  what  a  law  of  nature  is.  Now  there 
is  not  a  mind  on  earth — a  mind  in  whom  any  ideas  at  all  are  developed 
— a  mind  in  whom  the  same  identical  distinction  is  not  made  between 
the  body  and  the  soul,  that  is  made  in  the  Scriptures — in  whom  the  body 
is  not  regarded  as  constituted  of  '  dust,'  and  the  soul  as  an  ethereal  unity 
•which  is  distinct  and  separate  from  '  dust.'  There  is  not,  consequently, 
on  earth  a  mind  void  of  the  ideas  of  matter,  spirit,  time,  and  space,  and  of  an 
immutable  conviction  of  the  actual  existence  of  all  these  realities.  Mind 
cannot  exist  and  think  at  all  without  becoming  possessed  of  these  ideas 
and  convictions ;  and  in  all  their  essential  characteristics  they  are  the 
same  in  all  minds.  All  that  '  know  fact  and  law '  know  absolutely  that 
here  are  fundamental  facts  and  an  immutable  law  of  nature.  The  same 
remarks  are  equally  applicable  to  the  revealed  doctrines  of  Duty,  Immor- 
tality, and  lietribution.  By  an  immutable  law  of  the  Intelligence, 
universal  mind  apprehends  and  affirms  the  validity  of  these  doctrines. 
Each  member  of  the  human  family  does,  and  must  stand  revealed  to 
himself  as  a  free  moral  agent,  and  as  a  child,  not  of  time,  but  of  eternity. 
We  must  cease  to  be  conscious  at  all  before  we  can  cease  to  be  conscious 
of  our  subjection  to  the  law  of  duty,  and  accountable  to  a  higher  power 
for  our  moral  conduct.  2ior  can  we  cease  to  be  conscious  of  our  spirits  as 
naturally  endowed  with  an  immortal  vigour,  and  as  acting  as  probationers 
for  a  future  state.  Hence  it  is,  that  when  these  great  central  doctrines  of 
inspiration  are  distinctly  presented  to  universal  mind,  they  'commend 
themselves  to  every  man's  conscience  in  the  sight  of  God.  When  universal 
science  shall  reach  its  consummation,  Natural  and  Kevealed  Theism,  and 
the  system  of  Kational  and  Hevealed  Ontology,  will  have  a  prominent 


3SO  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

place  within  the  sphere  of  scientific  truth.  The  disciples  of  the  New 
Philosophy  have  much  to  say  about  'fact  and  law,'  and  about  their 
absolute  authority  in  science.  In  all  this  they  are  right.  In  obedience 
to  conscious  *  fact  and  law,'  we  believe  in  Matter,  Spirit,  Time,  and 
Space,  God,  the  Soul,  Duty,  Immortality,  and  Eetribution.  In  disregard 
of  conscious  'fact  and  law,'  they  disbelieve  in  these  eternal  verities. 
With  them,  it  is  science  to  believe  in  'fact  and  law,'  as  far  as  matter  is 
concerned,  and  un-science  to  believe  in  conscious  '  fact  and  law,'  as  far  as 
spirit  is  concerned.  "With  us,  it  is  science  to  believe  in  *  fact  and  law '  in 
both  particulars,  and  'science  falsely  so  called,'  to  disregard  'fact  and  law ' 
in  any  sphere  of  thought  whatever.  Here  lies  the  real  difference  between 
Theists  and  Anti-theists  in  all  ages.  The  latter  disbelieve  in'ftict  and 
law,'  but  in  one  exclusive  sphere  of  scientific  thought.  The  former  believe 
in  '  fact  and  law '  throughout  the  entire  domain  of  such  thought. 


SECTION  IIL 

THE  MORALITY  OF  THE  SCRIPTURES. 

The  questions,  What  ought  we  to  be  and  to  become,  and.  How  ought 
we  to  act,  enter,  as  problems  of  fundamental  interest,  into  all  systems  of 
Philosophy.  Modern  Unbelief  is  now  devoting  its  highest  energies  to 
prove  that  the  morality  of  the  Bible  is  in  no  essential  particulars  superior 
to,  or  diverse  from,  that  taught  in  other  systems  of  religion,  and  in  the 
Philosophies  of  the  world  ancient  and  modern.  The  object  of  the  present 
section  is  to  develop  the  fundamental  difference  between  the  moral  systems 
under  consideration.  On  this  topic,  we  designate  the  following  particulars 
in  which  the  moral  teachings  of  the  Bible  are  peculiarized  from  those  of 
all  the  other  systems  referred  to. 

1.  Moral  virtue  in  all  its  forms,  according  to  the  Bible,  has  its  spring 
and  source  in  the  inner  man,  the  heart,  and  consists  in  supreme  respect 
for  the  will  and  character  of  God  on  the  one  hand,  and  in  impartial  and 
universal  goodwill  to  man  on  the  other.  Eevealed  Morality,  consequently, 
assumes  two  forms — piety,  or  loving  God  with  all  our  powers — and 
universal  and  impartial  philanthropy,  or  'loving  our  neighbour  as  our- 
selves.' In  the  exercise  and  practice  of  Christian  virtue,  man  becomes,  in 
the  absolute  sense,  morally  pure  ;  in  other  words,  he  becomes  pure  not  only 
in  the  visible,  but  also  in  the  inner  life.  We  shall  search  in  vain  among 
all  heathen  religions  or  philosophies,  for  any  such  ideas  of  moral  virtue. 
With  very  few,  if  any,  exceptions,  moral  virtue  pertains  rather  to  the 
outer  than  the  inner  life,  and  is  therefore  fundamentally  imperfect.  A 
system  of  morality  which  does  not  include  piety  and  philanthropy  both, 
and  has  not  a  fundamental  reference  to  the  inner  life,  cannot  induce  real 
moral  purity  in  those  who  perfectly  conform  to  said  system.     An  indi- 


THE  MORALITY  OF  THE  SCRIPTURES.  351 

vidual,  for  example,  may  'l<eep  the  whole  law'  as  announced  by  the 
Brahiuinical  and  Buddhist  religions  and  philosophies,  and  have  no  inner 
respect  for  moral  virtue  at  all.  An  individual  cannot  be  moral  at  all  in 
the  Christian  sense,  without  being  pure  in  the  outer  and  inner  life  in 
common. 

2.  When  we  descend  to  a  consideration  of  particular  precepts  of  a 
fundamental  character,  the  perfection  of  the  Christian,  in  distinction  from 
all  other  systems,  becomes  still  more  manifest.  The  only  parallel  ever 
adduced  to  the  universal  rule  or  maxim  of  our  Saviour — to  wit,  '  What- 
soever ye  would  that  men  should  do  unto  you,  do  ye  also  unto  them,'  is 
the  negative  principle  of  Confucius,  namely,  '  Whatsoever  ye  would  that 
others  should  not  do  to  you,  refrain  from  doing  unto  them.'  The  real 
difference  between  these  two  precepts  is  world-vvide.  The  latter  requires 
no  positive  well-doing  in  any  form,  and  is  perfectly  fulfilled  when  we  refrain 
from  positive  acts.  The  former  requires  not  merely  refraining  from  wrong 
acts,  but  positive  and  unselfish  well-doing  in  all  its  forms.  When  we 
contemplate  such  precepts  as  the  following,  however — to  wit,  'Love  your 
enemies,'  '  When  your  enemy  hungers,  feed  him,'  '  Avenge  not  your- 
selves,' and  '  Be  not  overcome  of  evil,  but  overcome  evil  with  good,'  we 
then  find  ourselves  in  the  presence  of  a  system  of  morals  which  stands  in 
open  contrast  with  that  taught  in  all  other  religion,  and  in  all  the  godless 
philosophies  of  ancient  and  modern  times.  Yet,  without  these  peculiar 
and  special  principles  and  precepts,  all  moral  systems  are  funda- 
mentally imperfect  and  defective.  In  all  particulars  in  which  Christian 
morality  becomes  absolutely  perfect,  all  other  systems  are  fundamentally 
wanting. 

3.  Completeness  and  universality  constitute  another  peculiarity  which 
distinguishes  the  Christian  from  every  other  code  of  morals.  In  the 
Christian  system  no  conceivable  principle  necessary  to  its  absolute  com- 
pleteness and  perfection  is  wanting.  Jfo  such  principle  has  ever  been 
reached  by  human  thought,  a  principle  which  has  not  a  distinct  and 
specific  place  in  this  system.  On  the  score  of  completeness  and  perfec- 
tion, all  other  systems  are  manifestly,  and  in  fundamental  particulars, 
defective ;  while  they  announce  some  excellent  principles,  they  fail  to 
present  others  equally  important.  Hence  they  have  no  adaptations  what- 
ever to  take  rank  as  universal  systems. 

4.  While  the  Christian  system  is  thus  complete  and  perfect,  it  em- 
braces no  false  principles.  There  is  nothing  in  it  which  mars  its  beauty 
or  perfection.  While  all  other  systems  lack  completeness  and  perfection, 
they  also  embrace  principles  fundamentally  false,  and  subversive  of  all 
morality.  While  Confucius,  for  example,  taught  many  excellent  prin- 
ciples, he  taught  others  which  sanctify  the  absolute  despotism  of  China, 
and  shut  out  freedom  of  thought  and  action  from  one-third  of  the  huuiau 


352  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHTLOSOPHY. 

race.  How  perfect  in  certain  particulars  are  the  moral  teachi'ngs  of  Plato. 
Yet  in  his  Republic  he  in  fact  and  form  abolishes  marriage,  annihilates  the 
family,  makes  the  individual  a  mere  commodity  of  the  State,  and  sanctifies 
human  servitude.  Similar  principles  of  false  morality  mar  all  the  sys- 
tems under  consideration, 

5.  Hence  it  is  that  while  the  system  of  Christian  morals  has  absolute 
adaptation  as  the  guide  of  universal  human  life  and  conduct  in  all  ages 
and  all  conditions  of  human  existence,  every  one  of  the  other  systems 
under  consideration  failed  almost  utterly  in  their  adaptation  to  the  age 
and  the  people  in  which  and  among  whom  it  was  originated.  In  what- 
ever light  Chrivstian  morality  is  contemplated,  it,  like  the  Bible  amid  all 
other  books,  stan  Is  alone  in  the  world,  and  stands  revealed  to  us  as  not 
only  having  come  down  to  us  '  from  God  and  heaven,"  but  as  having 
originally  proceeded  from  the  heart  of  Infinity  and  Perfection, 


SECTION  IV. 

SPECIAL  AND  PECULIAR  DOCTRINES  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

Every  religion  has  certain  special  doctrines  and  principles  which 
peculiarize  and  separate  it  from  every  other  religion.  Such  is  the  case 
with  Christianity.  Its  revealed  doctrines  peculiarize  and  separate  it  to  an 
infinite  remove  from  all  other  religions.  Among  these  doctrines  we  shall 
refer  to  but  the  following  :  The  Tri-Unity  of  the  Godhead,  Incarnation 
and  Atonement,  and  Tlie  relations  of  God  to  believers  as  a  hearer  of  prayer. 
We  shall  refer  to  these  doctrines  in  the  order  above  designated. 

The  Tri-Unity  op  the  Godhead. 
Every  individual  who  is  at  all  acquainted  with  the  Scriptures  in  their 
original  languages,  is  aware  of  the  fact  that  the  first  time  in  which  the 
term  '  God '  ai)pears  therein,  that  term  has  not  the  singular,  but  the  plural 
form.  *  In  the  beginning  God  (Elohim)  created  the  heavens  and  the 
earth.'  Nor  at  that  era  of  the  world's  history  were  any  plural  forms  of 
words  employed,  as  '  We,  the  king,'  to  represent  any  single  personage. 
Immediately  after  this  opening  revelation  the  idea  of  a  mysterious  form 
of  plurality  in  the  Godhead  is  expressed  in  words  utterly  incompatible 
with  the  idea  of  absolute  unity.  '  And  the  Lord  God  said,  Behold,  the 
man  is  become  as  one  of  us.'  By  no  usage  in  any  age  has  any  such  form 
of  words  ever  been  applied  to  any  single  individual.  There  is,  then,  a 
plurality  in  some  form  in  the  Godhead.  Nor  is  the  doctrine  of  the 
divine  unity  ever  affirmed  in  the  Scriptures  in  the  absolute  sense,  but 
always  and  specifically  in  opposition  to  the  plurality  of  heathenism.  '  For 
though  there  be  that  are  called  gods,  whether  in  heaven  or  in  earth  (as 


SPECIAL  AND  PECULIAR  DOCTRINES  OF  CHRISTIANITY.    353 

there  be  gods  many  and  lords  many)  ;  but  to  us  there  is  but  one  God,  the 
Father,  of  whom  are  all  things,  and  we  in  Him  ;  and  one  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  by  wliom  are  all  things,  and  we  by  him.'  la  opposition  to  the 
plurality  of  heathenism,  so  the  Scriptures  teach,  *  there  is  one  God,'  or 
Godhead.  In  opposition  to  an  absolute  unity  there  is  a  form  of  plurality 
in  the  Godliead.  la  the  New  Tastament  this  plurality  assumes  a  definite 
form,  and  is  represented  by  the  terms,  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost. 
The/rtc/  of  this  unity  and  plurality  is  clearly  revealed.  The  grownd,  ox 
nature,  of  this  unity  on  the  one  hand,  and  plurality  on  the  other,  are  not 
revealed  at  all.  The  fact,  as  coming  within  the  sphere  of  revealed  truth, 
*  belongs  to  U3,  and  to  our  children.'  The  ground,  ot  nature,  referred  to  is 
among  '  the  secret  things  which  belong  to  God,'  and  is  consequently 
wholly  excluded  from  the  sphere  of  Theology  and  Speculative  Thought. 

As  the  immutable  condition  of  a  rational  admission  of  any  doctrine  per- 
taining to  God  as  true,  science  justly  requires  that  said  doctrine  shall  not 
be  self-contradictory  on  the  one  hand,  nor  undeniably  incompatible  with 
our  essential  idea  of  infinity  and  perfection  on  the  other.  Neither  of  these 
objections,  in  any  sense  or  form,  holds  against  the  doctrine  under  con- 
sideration. No  one  pretends  that  there  is  anything  in  the  doctrine  incom- 
patible with  uur  essential  iilea  of  infinity  and  perfection.  Equally  free  is  the 
doctrine  from  even  the  appearance  of  self-contradiction,  neither  thenature  of 
the  divine  unity  on  the  one  hand,  or  plurality  on  the  other,  being  even  pro- 
fessedly defined  in  the  Scriptures.  The  only  appearance  of  contradiction 
ever  found  in  the  doctrine  has  arisen,  not  from  the  doctrine  as  revealed,  but 
from  the  presumptuous  attempts  of  theologians  to  define  '  secret  things 
which  belong  to  God,'  As  a  revealed  fact,  the  nature  and  ground  of 
which  God  has  lefb  a  profound  and  inexplicable  mystery,  we  rationally 
hold  the  docrine  of  the  Tri-Unity  of  the  Godhead,  the  issue  between  the 
Trinitarian  and  Unitarian  believer  in  the  Scriptures  being  left  as  a  simple 
and  exclusive  question  of  Biblical  interpretation. 

Revealed  Relations  of  these  Tri-Personalities  to  one  Another, 
"While  the  nature  of  the  divine  unity,  on  the  one  hand,  and  plurality, 
on  the  other,  is  not  revealed,  these  Tri-Personalities  do  sustain  certain 
revealed  and  consoquently  definable  relations  to  one  another.  Whatever, 
for  example,  is  represented  by  such  words  as  original,  ultimate,  and  absolute 
authority  ;  supremncy,  and  paternity,  is  expressly  in  the  Scriptures  ascribed 
to  the  Father.  The  Son  and  Spirit  in  all  they  do  act  in  absolute  sub- 
ordination to  the  Father,  and  exercise  no  form  of  power  or  authority  but 
what  is  delegated  to  them  by  Him.  As  the  Creator  of  the  universe,  the 
Son  exercised  a  delegated  power;  'the  Father  creating  all  things  by 
Jesus  Christ.'  As  the  sovereign  and  judge  of  all,  Christ  thus  acta 
because  *the  government  has  been  laid  upon  His  shoulders/  because  *all 

23 


354  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY, 

power  is  given  imto  Him  in  heaven  and  in  earth,'  and  *  the  Father  hatli 
committed  all  judgment  to  the  Son.'  '  Christ  came  into  the  world,  not  to 
do  His  own  will,  but  the  will  of  Him  that  sent  Him.'  The  same  holds 
equally  true  of  the  Spirit.  Like  the  Son,  *  He  speaks  not  of  Himself, 
but  what  He  hears,  that  He  speaks,'  and  by  the  Father  the  Spirit  was 
sent  into  the  world,  as  Christ  was  sent  into  the  world. 

The  Son,  on  the  other  hand,  represents  the  Godhead  in  what  may 
be  denominated  supreme  executive  power,  authority,  and  majes'y,  the  Son 
being  the  supreme  authoritative  executor  of  the  Father's  will.  The 
agency  of  the  Father  is  not  directly  exerted  in  creation  and  providence. 
The  Father,  on  the  other  hand,  *  created  all  things  by  Jesus  Christ.'  To 
the  Son,  the  Father  thus  speaks ;  *  And  Thou,  Lord,  in  the  beginnin-j; 
hast  laid  the  foundations  of  the  earth ;  and  the  heavens  are  the  works  of 
Thy  hands.'  By  the  same  delegated  power,  '  Christ  upholds  all  things,' 
and  *  by  Him  all  things  consist ' — are  sustained  and  controlled.  All  the 
revelations  of  the  Godhead  are  made  through  Christ,  He  being  to  the 
universe  '  the  brightness  of  the  Father's  glory,  and  the  express  image  of 
His  substance.' 

The  Holy  Spirit,  we  remark,  lastly,  in  this  connection,  represents  the 
Godhead  as  that  invisible  divine  energy,  which  everywhere  acts  potentially 
in  nature,  and  directly  and  immediately  brings  to  pass  those  results  which 
God  wills.  'And  the  Spirit  of  God  moved  upon  the  face  of  the  waters.' 
Had  we  witnessed  the  results  here  referred  to,  nothing  would  have  been 
visible  to  us  but  the  simple  agitation  of  the  watery  elements.  Were  we 
infidels,  we  should  have  attributed  all  to  the  exclusive  action  of  natural 
law.  The  same  holds  true  of  the  results  produced  by  the  agency  of  the 
Spirit  everywhere,  in  the  universe  of  matter  and  spirit.  The  results  are 
manifest.  The  cause  is  invisible,  and  events  appear  as  they  would,  were 
they  the  exclusive  results  of  the  internal  powers  of  nature  itself.  All  the 
miracles  of  Christ,  we  are  told,  were  directly  and  immediately  perforoied 
through  the  invisible  agency  of  *  the  Spirit  of  God.'  Christ,  for  example, 
said  to  the  winds  and  waves  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  'Peace,  be  still.'  The 
Spirit  invisibly  *  moved  upon  the  face  of  the  waters,'  and  energized  in  the 
atmosphere  around,  and  thus  induced  the  subsidence  of  the  waves  and 
the  stillness  of  the  atmosphere  which  immediately  ensued.  So  in  all 
other  instances.  As  our  object  is  simply  to  indicate  the  relations  under 
consideration,  we  do  not  enlarge. 

Between  these  Tri-Personalities,  we  remark  once  more,  there  is  the 
revealed  action  of  the  social  principle — relations  analogous  to  those  which 
result  from  the  intercommunion  and  fellowship  of  mind  with  mind. 
Finite  minds  have  'fellowship  {intercommunion)  one  with  another,' 
while  all  the  pure  in  heart  have  '  fellowship  with  the  Father,  and  with 
His  Sou  Jesus  Christ,'  the  Finite  with  the  Lifinite.     In  the  Godhead  we 


SPECIAL  AND  PECULIAR  DOCTRINES  OF  CHRISTIANITY.     355 

have  the  revealed  intercommunion  and  fellowship  of  the  Infinite  with  the 
Infinite.  The  love,  for  example,  which  the  Father  exercises  towards 
believers  is  affirmed  to  he  the  same  in  kind  as  that  which  He  exercises 
towards  the  Son.  *  That  the  world  may  know  that  Thou  hast  sent  Me, 
and  hast  loved  them  as  Thou  hast  loved  Me.'  '  That  the  love  wherewith 
Thou  hast  loved  Me  may  be  in  them,  and  I  in  them.'  The  love  also 
which  Christ  exercises  towards  the  faithful  believer,  is  affirmed  to  be  the 
8anie  in  kind,  and  secured  on  the  same  conditions  as  that  which  the 
Father  exercises  towards  the  Son.  '  As  the  Father  hath  loved  Me,  so 
have  I  loved  you :  continue  ye  in  My  love.  If  ye  keep  My  command- 
ments, ye  shall  abide  in  My  love ;  eveu  as  I  have  kept  My  Father's  com- 
mandments, and  abide  in  His  love,'  The  union  and  feUowship  existing 
between  true  believers  is  also  affirmed  to  be  the  same  in  kind  as  that 
which  exists  between  the  Father  and  the  Son.  '  That  they  may  be  one, 
even  as  we  are  one ' — '  That  they  all  may  be  one  :  as  Thou,  Father,  art  iu 
Me,  and  I  in  Thee,  that  they  also  may  be  one  in  us.'  Nothing  can  be 
more  plain  than  is  the  revealed  fact,  that  between  the  Tri-Persoualities  of 
the  Godhead,  there  is  a  form  of  the  action  of  the  social  principle  analogous 
to  the  actual  intercommunion  and  fellowship  of  mind  with  mind — that  of 
the  Infinite  with  the  Infinite. 

Considerations  which  commend  this  Doctrine  to  our  Reason  and  Judjment 
While  there  is  nothing  whatever  in  the  doctrine  under  consideration 
against  which  science  can  object,  there  are  considerations  connected  with 
this  doctrine  which  commend  it  to  our  highest  regard.  Through  this 
doctrine,  for  example,  the  Godhead  is  revealed  to  us  in  absolute 
accordance  with  our  conscious  necessities  as  creatures,  and  more  especially 
as  sinners.  We  consciously  need  a  *  Father  in  heaven,'  whom  sinners 
may  approach  through  a  more  than  human — through  a  really  and  truly 
divine  Mediator.  We  as  consciously  need  an  indwelling  divine  and 
'  eternal  Spirit,'  through  whose  infallible  teachings  and  illuminations  we 
can  see  ourselves  as  God  sees  us,  can  know  ourselves,  not  only  as  sinners, 
but  as  'the  sons  of  God,'  can  '  behold  with  open  face  the  glory  of  the 
Lord,'  and  thus  become  God-like  and  Christ-like  in  character  and  blessed- 
ness. Nothing  can  be  more  reasonable  than  a  form  of  divine  revelation 
which  thus  accords  with  the  conscious  necessities  of  universal  human 
nature. 

This  doctrine,  also,  has  in  its  favour  the  analogy  of  universal  nature  in 
all  departments  of  sentient  existence.  How  universal,  in  all  departments 
of  such  existence,  is  the  action  of  the  social  principle.  If  the  same 
principle  obtains  in  the  Godhead,  we  have  an  explanation  of  the  facts 
of  sentient  nature  otherwise  inconceivable,  and  the  analogy  between  God 
and  His  works  is  perfect. 

23—2 


356  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

This  doctrine  and  this  exclusively,  we  remark  once  more,  renders  con- 
ceivable to  us  the  infinite  blessedness  of  God.  The  action  of  the  social 
principle  seems  to  be  the  immutable  condition  of  real  happiness  on  the 
part  of  all  sentient,  and  more  especially  of  all  rational,  finite  natures. 
Nor  could  the  action  of  this  principle  between  the  Finite  and  the  Infinite 
meet  the  wants  of  the  latter.  A  mind  dwelling  apart  and  alone  in 
infinite  and  eternal  solitariness,  how  can  we  conceive  of  the  full  and 
perfect  blessedness  of  such  mind,  though  it  is  infinite  and  perfect  in 
itself?  If  there  is,  on  the  other  hand,  in  the  Godhead  the  actual  inter- 
communion and  fellowship  of  the  Infinite  with  the  Infinite,  the  result 
must  be  infinite  and  eternal  blessedness.  Hence  it  is,  that  whenever  the 
idea  of  a  divine  unity  which  excludes  wholly  all  plurality  obtains,  the 
idea  of  God  as  void  of  emotion  prevails,  and  any  thought  of  His  blessed- 
ness has  a  very  obscure  and  unimpressive  place.  Whenever,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  doctrine  of  the  Tri-Unity  of  the  Godhead  is  held,  then  we 
find  a  distinct  and  vivid  impression  of  the  infinite  blessedness  of  God. 
The  reason  is  obvious.  The  idea  of  infinite  blessedness,  and  that  of 
infinite  and  eternal  solitariness,  seem  to  be  incompatible  ideas,  while  the 
former  idea  naturally  arises  when  that  of  the  iutercommuuiou  and 
fellowship  of  the  Infinite  with  the  Infinite  has  place.  Eeasons  of  infinite 
weight,  therefore,  commend  this  doctrine,  as  a  revealed  truth,  to  our 
liighest  regard. 

The  Doctrine  op  Incarnation  and  Atonement, 
In  the  Old  Testament  God  is  affirmed  to  have  made  direct  and  audible 
communications  with  men.  These  communications  were  commonly  made 
through  some  visible  form  of  divine  manifestation,  as  in  the  '  burning 
Lush,'  the  pillar  of  cloud  and  of  flre,  the  thunder  cloud  and  thick  dark- 
ness, or  angelic  or  human  forms.  The  term,  'Angel  of  the  Lord,'  was 
appropriated,  as  all  careful  readers  of  the  Scriptures  are  aware,  to  re- 
present the  idea  of  Jehovah,  not  as  He  exists  by  Himself,  but  as  thus 
manifested.  Thus  we  read,  at  one  time,  that  God,  and  at  another  that 
'the  Angel  of  the  Lord,'  spoke  to  Moses  in  the  bush,  and  went  before 
the  hosts  of  Israel  in  a  pillar  of  cloud  by  day,  and  of  fire  by  night,  the 
two  terms  being  everywhere  employed  interchangeably  in  the  Scriptures. 
In  Mai.  iii.  1,  this  visibly  manifested  Jehovah,  this  '  Angel  of  the  Lord,' 
by  whom  the  covenants,  and  all  divine  manifestations,  were  made,  is 
identified  with  the  promised  Messiah,  that  is,  with  Christ  '  Behold,  I 
will  send  ]\[y  messenger,  and  He  shall  prepare  the  way  before  Me  :  and 
the  Lord,  whom  ye  seek,  shall  suddenly  come  to  His  temple,  even  the 
Messenger  of  the  Covenant,  whom  ye  delight  in  :  behold,  He  shall  come, 
eaith  the  Lord  of  hosts.' 

In  the  New  Testament,  this  *  Angel  of  the  Lord,'  this  *  Messenger  of 


SPECIAL  AND  PECULIAR  DOCTRINES  OF  CHRISTIANITY.     357 

the  Covenant,'  *  the  Lord,'  who  was  not  only  *  the  deh'ght '  of  the  Jews, 
but  *  the  desire  of  all  nations,'  *  the  Word  who  was  in  the  beginning  with 
God,  and  was  God,'  the  Word  by  whom  '  all  things  were  made,  and  with- 
out whom  was  nothing  made  that  was  made,'  is  affirmed  to  have  *  become 
flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us.'  Here  we  find  ourselves  in  the  open  presence 
of  the  mystery  of  the  Incarnation — '  God,'  not  visibly  manifested  in 
transient,  vanishing  forms,  but  '  manifest  in  the  flesh,'  and  '  dwelling 
among  us.'  What  has  leason  and  science  to  say  of  such  a  doctrine  1 
We  answer : 


Belafions  of  the  Doctrine  of  Incarnation  to  Reason  and  Science. 

1.  There  is  no  element,  or  feature,  or  characteristic  of  this  doctrine 
which  has  even  the  appearance  of  a  natural  impossibility.  K  a  personal 
God  exists,  and  there  is  no  fact,  truth,  or  principle  known  to  science 
which  contradicts  this  doctrine,  it  is  undeniable  that  as  a  self-conscious 
personality  God  may,  when  He  chooses,  make  communications  to  His 
rational  offspring,  and  may  do  this  through  any  visible  forms  he  may 
select. 

2.  Nor  is  there  anything  in  this  doctrine  which  has  the  appearance  of 
incredibility.  If  creatures  need  divine  communications,  and  we  all  know 
that  they  do  need  them,  it  is  not  reason,  but  unreason,  to  suppose  that 
such  revelations  will  not  be  made.  The  making  of  such  revelations 
through  visible  forms,  renders  God's  personality,  personal  presence,  and 
love  and  care  for  us,  more  distinct  and  impressive  than  is  otherwise  pos- 
sible. Such  considerations  undeniably  remove  wholly  every  shade  of 
incredibility  from  every  form  of  divine  manifestation  recorded  in  the 
Bible.  Grant  the  being  of  a  personal  God,  and  the  conscious  needs  of 
universal  mind,  and  the  only  mystery  about  the  matter  is  that  such 
manifestations  have  not  been  of  far  more  frequent  occurrence  than  the 
revealed  record  indicates. 

3.  The  crowning  glory  of  all  such  manifestations  is  *  God  manifest  in 
the  flesh.'  That  God,  in  a  human  form  and  condition,  should  descend  to 
us  in  our  sin,  ruin,  and  misery,  should  become  our  example,  teacher,  and 
guide,  should  reveal  to  us,  not  only  our  sin,  but  the  conditions  of  escape 
from  its  bondage  and  curse-power,  and  should  '  bring  life  and  immortality 
to  light '  in  the  midst  of  our  darkness  and  gloom — this  great  fact  will  fill 
eternity,  and  to  eternity  will  constitute  the  central  theme  of  thought  and 
study  with  the  great  intelligences  of  the  universe.  The  scofiF  of  Unbelief 
at  such  a  doctrine  is  nothing  but  a  revelation  of  debasing  ignorance, 
consummate  folly,  and  reckless  presumption.  What  does  the  unbeliever 
know  of  what  is,  and  is  not,  possible  with  God  1  On  what  authority 
does  he  dogmatize  in  respect  to  God's  thoughts  and  ways  1     \Vith  an 


358  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

elFrontery  at  which  *  devils  treinhle,'  the  unbeliever  advances  boldly  to 
the  eternal  throne,  and  questions  God  in  respect  to  His  judgments, 
thoughts,  ways,  dispensations,  and  forms  of  manifestation,  God,  while 
He  responds  not  to  such  impious  questionings,  holds  in  reserve  retribu- 
tions according  to  deeds. 

Atonement. 
The  main  revealed  purpose  of  the  Incarnation  is  Atonement,  which  embraces 
two  chief  elements — Substitution  and  Satisfaction.  *  Christ  died  for  onr 
eins,  the  just  for  (in  the  place  of)  the  unjust.'  There  is  substitution.  His 
sufferings  and  death,  as  '  a  sacrifice  for  sin,'  renders  it  'just '  in  God  to 
•justify,'  pardon,  treat  as  just,  or  as  if  he  had  never  sinned,  '  hira  who  be- 
lieveth  in  Jesus.'  There  is  satisfaction.  Angels  and  redeemed  sinners 
are  together  in  heaven,  and  God  and  the  rational  universe  are  equally 
satisfied  to  have  them  together  there.  The  former  are  there  on  the  ground 
of  personal  desert,  they  having  never  sinned  at  all.  The  latter  are  there 
because  Christ  *  was  slain,  and  redeemed  them  unto  God  by  His  blood,' 
that  is,  made  atonement  for  them.  The  reason  in  both  cases  is  equally 
satisfactory.  Such  is  atonement.  What  are  the  relations  of  this  doctrine 
to  reason  and  science  %    We  answer : 

Relations  of  this  Doctrine  to  Ueason  and  Science. 

1.  While  neither  reason  nor  science  can  affirm  Atonement  to  be  im- 
possible with  God,  for  aught  we  do  or  can  know,  there  may  be  in  the 
Divine  mind  reasons  of  infinite  weight  why  it  should  be  known  to  the 
rational  universe,  that  without  an  atonement  sin  will  never  be  forgiven. 
The  revelation  of  such  provision  may  also  be  to  the  universe  what  re- 
velation affirms  it  to  be,  the  crowning  glory  of  all  the  divine  works, 
government,  and  manifestations.  Through  no  conceivable  form  of  mani- 
festation can  such  love  to  creatures,  such  regard  for  their  well-being,  and 
such  wisdom  in  making  provision  for  their  immortal  interests,  be 
shown.  While  atonement  is  above  reason  and  science,  they  can  appre- 
ciate the  grace  and  glory  manifested  in  it. 

2.  The  fact  that  this  is  God's  revealed  method  of  *  making  an  end  of 
sin,  and  bringing  in  everlasting  righteousness,'  should  for  ever  silence  all 
objections  on  the  part  of  creatures  against  it.  Salvation  from  sin  is  un- 
deniably the  great  conscious  necessity  of  universal  humanity.  If  God 
has  revealed  a  method  for  the  accomplishment  of  this  result,  a  method 
satisfactory  to  Himself  and  to  the  Intelligence  of  heaven,  how  impious  in 
man  to  object  against  it  I 

3.  This  doctrine,  instead  of  being  opposed  to  reason,  does  in  fact 
accord  with  the  intuitive  convictions  of  the  race.  The  conciousness  of 
sin  and  the  consequent  need  of  pardon  is  co-extensive  with  the  human 


SPECIAL  AND  PECULIAR  DOCTRINES  OF  CHRISTIANITY^    359 

consciousness  itself.  In  all  minds,  in  all  ages,  the  idea  of  pardon  has 
been  immutably  associated  with  that  of  some  sacrifice  as  atonement  for 
sin.  The  natural  cry  of  conscious  sin  as  the  creature  approaches  his 
God  is :  *  Wherewith  shall  1  come  before  the  Lord  1' — '  Shall  I  give  my 
firstborn  for  my  transgression,  the  fruit  of  my  body  for  the  sin  of  my 
soul  f  The  atonement  of  Christ  is  but  the  antitype  foreshadowed  by  the 
sentiment  which  thus  lies  upon  the  soul  of  universal  humanity. 

4.  The  pardon  of  sin,  we  remark  once  more,  through  a  divinely 
originated  atonement,  is  far  more  honourable  to  God,  and  more  eafe,  as 
a  method  of  Divine  administration  than  any  other  conceivable  condition. 
Pardon,  under  a  purely  legal  administration,  is  one  of  the  most  perilous 
principles  known  under  any  form  of  government,  inducing,  as  it  does,  in 
all  minds  the  hope  of  impunity  in  crime.  Pardon  through  atonement  is 
not  only  most  honourable  to  God,  but  renders  perfectly  safe  all  interests 
concerned,  the  law  '  being  magnified  and  made  honourable,'  while  its 
penalty  is  remitted.  While  the  doctrine  of  Incarnation  and  Atonement 
is  above  reason,  it  has,  as  a  revealed  truth,  the  most  absolute  sanction  of 
the  highest  reason. 

Eelations  op  God  to  Believers  as  a  Hearer  op  Praybb. 
•  Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread.'  '  The  prayer  of  faith  shall  save 
the  sick.'  *  Is  any  man  afflicted,  let  him  pray.'  '  The  effectual  fervent 
prayer  of  a  righteous  man  availeth  much.  Elias  was  a  man  subject  to 
like  passions  as  we  are,  and  he  prayed  earnestly  tliat  it  might  not  rain ; 
and  it  rained  not  on  the  earth  by  the  space  of  three  years  and  six  months. 
And  he  prayed  again,  and  the  heaven  gave  rain,  and  the  earth  brought 
forth  her  fruit,'  '  How  much  more  shall  your  heavenly  Father  give  good 
things  to  them  that  ask  Him.'  'And  He  spake  this  parable  unto  them, 
that  men  ought  always  to  pray  and  not  to  faint.'  '  Whatsoever  ye  shall 
ask  the  Father  in  ]My  name.  He  shall  give  it  you.'  *  Ask,  and  ye  shall 
receive,  that  your  joy  may  be  full — casting  all  your  care  upon  Him,  for 
He  careth  for  you.'  We  give  the  above  as  examples  of  the  teaching  of 
inspiration  on  this  subject  If  we  may  credit  '  what  is  written,'  prayer 
has  *  much  avail,'  not  merely  in  the  sphere  of  our  spiritual  interests,  but 
equally  in  reference  to  all  our  temporal  cares  and  concernments,  and  has 
power  to  secure  changes  which  would  not  otherwise  occur,  not  only  in  the 
wide  realm  of  our  moral  and  spiritual  relations,  but  equally  in  respect  to 
physical  events  in  the  world  around  us.  Unbelief  affirms  that  here,  as 
elsewhere,  Scripture  and  science  are  in  conflict.  What  are  the  real  facts  of 
the  case  !     On  this  subject  we  remark  : 

Relations  of  this  Dodrine  to  the  Teachings  of  Science. 
1.  No  fact  known  to  science  affirms,  or  renders  it  even  antecedently 


36d  a  critical  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

probable,  that  the  Spirit  of  God,  as  a  self-conscious  personal  agent,  is  not 
omnipresent  in  nature,  that  every  law  of  nature  is  not  the  expression  of 
His  will,  and  that  every  event  in  nature  is  not  under  His  direct  and  im- 
mediate control.  This  fact  has  been  rendered  undeniably  evident  in  our 
former  discussions. 

2.  The  dogma  that  all  events  in  the  world  of  matter  are  under  the 
inexorable  control  of  mere  physical  law,  is  perpetually  contradicted  by 
visible  and  conscious  facts.  Changes  in  nature — changes  which  would 
not  otherwise  occur — are  perpetually  visible  all  around  us  as  the  exclusive 
results  of  the  action  of  fiee-will  in  man.  The  action  of  free-will  in 
nature,  and  the  contingency  of  physical  events  upon  its  action,  is  a  fact 
just  as  manifest  as  is  the  occurrence  of  any  events  througli  physical  law. 
The  doctrine,  that  all  physical  events,  not  to  speak  of  moral  and  spiritual, 
are  under  the  same  rule  of  phvsical  law,  is  undeniably  false  in  fact. 

3.  There  is  not  a  fact  known  to  science,  or  within  the  range  of  human 
observation  and  thought,  a  fact  which,  in  the  remotest  sense,  contradicts, 
or  renders  improbable  the  doctrine  that  changes  in  the  current  of  events 
in  nature  around  us  are  produced  by  the  action  of  the  free-will  of 
God,  in  a  manner  analogous  or  similar  to  that  in  which  similar  changes 
are  being  produced  by  that  of  the  free-will  of  man.  What,  if  the  facts 
revealed  through  the  telescope,  the  microscope,  in  the  laboratory  of  the 
chemist,  and  the  dissecting-room  of  the  anatomist,  were  adduced  to  prove 
that  no  changes  in  nature  do,  or  can,  occur  through  the  free  action  of 
the  human  will?  Such  reasoning  would  be  no  more  illogical  than  is  the 
inference  from  the  same  and  similar  facts,  or  from  any  facts  known  to 
man,  that  no  such  changes  are  ever  induced  through  the  free-will  of 
God. 

4.  For  aught  that  man  does  or  can  know  upon  the  subject,  the  per- 
petuation of  the  universal  order  and  harmony  of  nature  through  the 
exclusive  action  of  mere  necessary  physical  law,  may  be  a  natural  impos- 
sibility. The  preservation  of  the  universal  order  we  witness,  the  balance 
of  worlds  in  empty  space,  and  the  harmony  of  events  around  us,  may, 
for  aught  we  do  or  can  know,  be  necessarily  contingent  on  changes  pro- 
duced by  the  direct  action  of  the  free-will  of  Go  J.  Of  one  fact  we  are 
absolutely  sure,  that  our  own  ignorance  on  this  subject  is  absolute. 
Equally  assured  are  we  that  the  ignorance  of  all  scientists  on  the  same 
subject  is,  and  must  be,  as  absolute  as  ours.  Nothing  can  surpass  the 
impiety  and  presumption  of  men  who  boldly  and  dogmatically  assert, 
'  that  they  know  fact,  and  that  they  know  law,'  and  that  all  events  are 
under  the  exclusive  control  of  mere  physical  law,  and  that  the  free-will 
of  God,  equally  with  that  of  man,  is  not  active  in  nature. 

6.  According  to  the  infidel  hypothesis,  the  free-will  of  God  is  less  free, 
ftnd  more  conlined  and  lii^xited  in  its  action  in  Nature  than  is  that  of 


SrEC/AL  AND  PECULIAR  DOCTRINES  OF  CHRISTIANITY.    361 

man.  Tlio  free-will  of  man  undeniably  can,  and  does,  produce  constant 
changes  in  the  current  of  events  around  us,  and  this  with,  no  violation  of 
any  material  law.  What  dogma  can  be  more  absurd  than  is  the  idea, 
that  the  free-will  of  the  Author  of  Nature  is  limited  in  the  Nature 
which  he  constituted  to  the  exclusive  control  of  blind,  unconscious  and 
bald,  natural  and  uecessary  law  ?  No  more  absurd  conception  ever 
danced  in  the  brain  of  a  crazy  philosophy.  The  Christian  hypothesis, 
as  an  object  of  thought,  is  infinitely  superior  to  the  godless  dogma  under 
consideration.  The  idea  of  a  universe  under  the  immediate  direction  and 
control  of  an  infinite  and  perfect  mind  is  as  much  superior  to  that  of  a 
godless  universe  under  the  domain  of  necessary  physical  law,  as  mind  is 
superior  to  matter ;  while  the  most  debasing  and  absurd  of  all  possible 
conceptions  is  that  of  an  infinite  and  perfect  free  Spirit  in  N^iture,  and 
that  Spirit  chained  down  and  limited  there  to  the  iron  control  of  blind 
material  law.  Nothing  can  be  more  senseless  and  absurd  than  is  what 
Mr.  Beecher  rightly  calls  *  the  perpetual  twaddle  of  infidelity  '  about  the 
universal  and  iron  rule  of  necessary  law  in  Nature. 

6.  Hence  we  remark  finally,  that  no  truth  of  nature  or  inspiration  can 
be  more  reasonable  in  itself,  more  accordant  with  conscious  facts  of  the 
human  Will,  more  correlative  to  the  conscious  needs  of  human  nature, 
and  more  in  harmony  with  all  proper  ideas  of  God,  and  of  His  relations 
to  His  own  "works,  than  is  the  Doctrine  of  Prayer  as  set  forth  in  the 
Scriptures.  There  is  not  a  fact  of  nature  known  to  mind  that  is  in  con- 
flict with  that  doctrine.  There  is  not  a  want  of  mind,  or  a  known 
attribute  of  God,  which  is  not  in  full  harmony  with  this  doctrine,  and 
does  not  aflSrm  its  validity.  Receiving  as  deductions  of  science  this 
'twaddle  of  infidelity'  about  the  reign  of  universal  and  necessary  law 
in  nature,  and  the  consequent  limitations  of  our  ideas  of  the  proper  sphere 
and  efficacy  of  prayer,  has  been  most  manifestly  a  chief  cause  of  that 
eclipse  of  the  faith  of  the  Church  in  God,  and  of  His  revealed  truth. 
When  our  unbelief  has  closed  the  ear  of  God  to  our  prayers  relative 
to  our  sicknesses  and  daily  cares  and  coucernments,  as  well  as  to  passing 
events  in  the  world  around  us,  we  shall  find  our  God  nowhere.  We  may 
still  chatter  the  words,  '  Our  Father,  which  art  in  heaven,'  '  Give  us  this 
day  our  daily  bread.*  Our  words,  however,  will  be  not  only  void  of  real 
meaning,  but  as  powerless  to  stir  the  spirit  of  devotion,  thanksgiving, 
faith,  or  hope,  in  our  hearts,  as  if  they  were  addressed  to  Juggernaut,  or 
an  iceberg.  We  stand  before  God  as  '  mockers,'  when  we  ask  of  Him 
favours  which  we  say  in  our  hearts  He  will  not  give.  Those  who  would 
take  lessons  about  prayer  from  such  men  as  Protagoras,  Tyndall,  Spencer, 
and  Huxley,  would  do  well  to  hold  the  admonition  of  Socrates  about 
such  teachers.  The  following  passage  we  have  quoted  once  before.  It 
will  well  bear  a  second  reading. 


362  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

*  Is  not,  0  Hippocrates,  a  Sophist,  a  seller  or  vendor  of  articles  on 
■which  the  soul  is  fed  1     He  seems  to  me  to  he  something  of  that  kind.' 

'  What,  Socrates  !  is  the  soul  fed  %     On  what,  I  pray  f 

*  On  the  lessons  of  teachers,  and  we  must  take  care  that  the  Sophists 
do  not  cheat  us  in  selling  their  wares,  as  the  sellers  of  food  for  the  body- 
often  do.  For  they,  without  knowing  what  is  really  good  for  the  body, 
praise  all  their  wares  alike,  and  the  buyer  knows  just  as  little,  unless  he 
be  a  physician  or  a  training-master.  And  just  so  these  vendors  of  lessons, 
who  carry  their  wares  about  from  city  to  city,  and  sell  them  to  everyone 
whom  they  can  persuade  to  buy,  praise  all  the  articles  which  they  sell ; 
but  very  likely  some  of  these,  too,  know  very  little  what  is  good  for  the 
soul,  and  what  is  not ;  and  the  buyer  knows  just  as  little,  except  any  of 
them  be  soul-physicians.  If,  then,  you  are  a  judge  of  what  is  good  in 
this  way,  and  what  is  not,  you  may  safely  buy  lessons  of  Protagoras,  or 
anyone  else.  But  if  not,  take  care,  my  good  friend,  that  you  do  not  run 
a  dreadful  risk  in  a  vital  concern  ;  for  there  is  far  more  danger  in  buying 
lessons  than  in  buying  victuals.' 

For  myself,  I  would  as  soon  purchase  henbane  as  food  for  the  body,  as 
buy  lessons  from  these  men  on  so  vital  a  subject  as  prayer. 

The  most  senseless  and  perilous  of  all  ideas  pertaining  to  prayer  for 
temporal  good  is,  that  its  design  is,  not  to  secure  help  from  God,  but  to 
quicken  our  own  efforts  in  the  use  of  means.  Prayer,  prompted  by  such 
a  sentiment,  will  be  as  powerless  to  quicken  our  activities  as  it  will  be  to 
move  the  heart  of  God.  Prayer  has  the  power  which  inspiration  ascribes 
to  it,  or  it  is  a  senseless  mockery  of  God. 


BOOK  IL 

PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  EARLY  CHRISTIAN  ERA. 

Throughout  the  entire  sphere  of  philosophic  thought  which  we  have 
thus  far  traversed,  one  idea  has  everywhere,  and  in  all  systems  in  common, 
lifted  its  divine  form  hefore  our  minds — that  of  a  personal  God.  In  every 
system  which  the  human  mind  has  ever  originated,  this  one  idea  has  heeu 
omnipresent,  either  in  its  affirmative  or  negative  form.  In  all  systems 
alike  the  doctrine  of  God  has  been,  in  fact  and  form,  specifically  affirmed 
or  denied,  thus  evincing  the  absolute  omnipresence  of  the  doctrine  in 
human  thought.  Not  did  Philosophy  ever  present  or  discuss  this  doctrine 
as  an  idea  which  scientific  thought  had  of  itself  originated,  but  as  an 
object  of  the  pre-existing  faith  of  the  race.  Philosophy  never  originates 
its  own  problems,  but  attempts  the  solution  of  those  which  the  primitive 
thought  of  the  race  has  previously  originated.  Had  not  the  idea  of  Ulti- 
mate Causation,  of  the  Organization  of  the  Universe  as  an  event  of  time, 
and  consequently  that  'the  worlds  were  framed  by  the  word  of  God,' 
previously  presented  itself  to  human  thought,  and  become  an  article  of 
the  primitive  faith  of  the  race.  Philosophy  would  never  have  originated 
the  idea,  or  concerned  itself  with  inquiries  in  respect  to  its  validity  or  in- 
validit}'.  Mind  cannot  exist  and  think  at  all  without  being  confronted 
with  the  ideas  of  matter  and  spirit,  time  and  space,  of  an  organized 
universe,  of  proximate  and  ultimate  Causation,  and  consequently,  with 
those  of  God,  Duty,  Immortality,  and  Retribution.  The  central  problem 
which  Philosophy  has  ever  concerned  itself  with  is,  Ultimate  Causation 
by  Natural  Law,  or  by  the  "Word  of  a  personal  God.  This  problem 
Philosophy  cannot  ignore  if  it  would,  and  it  should  not  do  it  if  it  could. 
Human  thought  will  never  rest  until  the  doctrine  of  Ultimate- Causation 
shall  be  finally  settled,  and  that  upon  a  strictly  scientific  basis. 

Since  the  introduction  of  the  Christian  Era,  the  problem  under  con- 
sideration has  assumed,  in  fundamental  respects,  aspects  entirely  new. 
In  former  ages  Theism  and  Anti-theism  confronted  each  other.  Now  the 
main  issue,  as  presented  in  all  philosophical  systems,  lies  not  merely 
between  Theism  and  Anti-theism,  but  between  the  latter  and  Christian, 


364  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Theism.  The  old  issue  is  not  ignored.  •  Yet  the  main  interest  turns  upon 
the  real  relations  actually  existing  between  science  and  the  Christian 
religion.  Wherever  any  contact  occurs  between  the  latter  and  any  of  the 
sciences,  there  a  special  issue  is  raised,  not  so  much  with  Theism  as  with 
the  idea  of  God  as  developed  in  the  Christian  Scriptures.  Facts  of  Geology, 
for  example,  facts  bearing  also  upon  the  antiquity  of  the  human  race,  and 
the  doctrines  of  Evolution  and  Development,  are  seldom  or  never  adduced 
to  disprove  the  doctrine  of  Theism  by  itself,  but  Theism  as  developed  in 
these  writings.  With  few  and  honourable  exceptions,  all  who  do,ny  the 
divinity  of  Christianit}' impeach  Theism  itself.  The  leaders  of  the  Broad 
Church  openly  avow  a  deeper  sympathy  with  the  Eationalisra,  Atheism, 
and  Scepticism  of  the  age  than  with  Christianity.  Such  being  the 
obvious  state  of  facts,  certain  fundamental  inquiries  here  arise,  inquiries 
each  of  which  demands  a  specific  answer  as  preparatory  to  our  future 
elucidations. 

SECTION  L 

RELATIONS  BETWEEN  THEISM  PROPER  AND  CHRISTIAN  THEISM. 

Webb  we  to  provide  an  illustration  of  our  idea  of  the  relations  of  Theism 
proper  to  Christian  Theism,  we  should  present  the  natural  eye,  in  the  first 
case,  and  then  the  same  organ  as  aided  by  the  microscope,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  telescope  on  the  other.  The  real  difference  in  the  forms 
of  vision  in  the  two  cases  lies  here.  Vision  in  respect  to  all  objects  is  far 
more  distinct  and  impressive,  and  infinitely  more  enlarged  in  the  latter 
case  than  in  the  former.  In  no  respects  is  there  a  conflict  between  the 
two  forms  of  Theism  under  consideration.  As  far  as  their  revelations 
and  deductions  pertain  to  the  same  verities,  a  perfect  harmony  obtains 
between  them.  Yet,  like  that  which  obtains  between  the  revelations  of 
the  natural  eye  and  those  of  the  microscope  and  telescope,  an  essential 
difference  in  important  respects  obtains  between  the  revelations  of  natural 
and  of  Christian  Theism. 

Christian  Theism  renders  infinitely  more  distinct  and  impressive  the  real 
verities  apprehended  through  Natural  Theism. 

As  we  Ijave  stated,  where  the  teachings  of  the  two  systems  relate  to  the 
same  verities,  a  perfect  unity  obtains  between  them.  Yet  even  here  an 
essential  difference  obtains,  as  far  as  the  elements  of  distinctness  and  tm- 
pressiveness  are  concerned,  a  difference  like  that  which  obtains  in  our 
vision  of  objects  when  seen  under  the  dimness  of  star-liglit  and  the  cloud- 
less illumination  of  the  noonday  sun.  The  facts  of  nature,  for  example, 
facts  material  and  mental,  have  rendered  omnipresent  in  all  minds  iu 
common  the  idea  of  a  personal  God,  'the  Former  of  all  things,'  and  ren- 


THEISM  PROPER,  AND  CHRISTIAN  THEISM.  365 

dered  equally  omnipresent  the  conviction  of  His  being,  perfection,  and 
universal  dominion.  Nor  are  unbelievers  of  any  school  real  exceptions  to 
these  statements.  Notwithstanding  all  thoir  affirmations  to  the  contrary, 
in  the  interior  of  their  own  minds  they  as  really  believe  in  the  actual  ex- 
istence of  matter,  spirit,  time,  space,  and  God  as  the  universal  Creator 
and  Governor,  as  do  the  rest  of  mankind.  When  an  individual,  for 
example,  enters  into  an  earnest  argument  with  me,  to  prove  to  himself 
and  me  that  neither  himself  nor  myself  really  exists,  I  am  necessarily  re- 
minded of  an  ancient  utterance,  '  professing  themselves  to  be  wise,  they 
become  fools.'  I  know,  in  short,  that  he  does  not  believe  in  the  validity 
of  his  own  theory  or  argument.  If  he  truly  believes  that  neither  him- 
self, myself,  nor  anybody  else  really  exists,  where  is  the  ground  for  his  solici- 
tude to  convince  these  nobodies  that  nobody  exists  ]  While  no  one  does  or 
can  sincerely  doubt  his  own  or  the  existence  of  other  beings,  and  of  the 
universe  around  him,  he  must  of  necessity  as  really  believe  in  the  being 
of  God.  Yet  God,  as  apprehended  in  the  light  of  these  mere  facts,  is  to 
the  mind  one  reality.  As  apprehended  through  the  superadded  light  of 
inspiration  He  is  the  same,  and  yet  quite  another  reality,  the  Supreme 
and  all-overshadowing  Presence.  In  the  former  state  we  believe  in  God. 
In  the  latter  we  need  not  only  believe  in,  but  haow  God,  *  beholding  with 
open  face  the  glory  of  the  Lord.' 

The  consciousness  of  sin  and  of  ill  desert  on  account  of  sin,  is  co-ex- 
tensive with  the  action  of  human  consciousness  itself.  Yet  sin  and  its 
desert,  as  apprehended  in  the  twilight  of  the  natural  conscience  on  the 
one  hand,  and  in  the  light  of  inspiration,  and  especially  of  the  convicting 
power  of  the  Eternal  Spirit  on  the  other,  hardly  appear  as  the  same 
thing.  The  same  holds  true  of  all  verities  of  Nature,  when  appre- 
hended under  the  sun-light  of  Eevealed  Eeligion.  In  the  latter  state 
they  have  a  distinctness  and  irapressiveness  which  do  not  and  cannot 
belong  to  them  in  the  former,  '  Life  and  immortality  are  brought  to 
light '  (not  originated,  but  brought  out  of  obscurity  and  set  in  distinct  and 
all-impressive  visibility),  'through  the  Gospel.' 

Christian  Theism  extends  our  vision  of  truth  beyond  the  possible  reach  of 
Natural  Theism. 

Eevealed  religion  not  only  illuminates  what  was  previously  known, 
but  extends  our  vision  of  truth  to  spheres  and  relations  of  existence 
which  lie  wholly  beyond  the  reach  of  our  faculties  when  under  the  ex- 
clusive light  of  nature.  Man  is  consciously  a  sinner,  and  is  burdened 
with  a  conscious  forfeiture  of  the  Divine  favour,  and  a  corresponding  desert 
of  the  Divine  displeasure.  If  any  destiny  awaits  us  but  that  demanded  by 
pure  justice  and  our  ill-desert,  and  especially  if  God  has  chosen  to  make 
special  provisions  for  our  deliverance  from  the  curse-penalty  of  sin,  and 


366  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  power  of  evil  principles  and  tendencies — in  short,  if  we  are  under  a 
dispensation  of  grace  and  not  of  justice,  and  if  God  is  consequently  in 
other  than  purely  legal  relations  to  us  on  all  such  subjects,  all  our  know- 
ledge must  be  a  matter  of  pure  and  special  revelation.  We  are  in  the 
midst  of  verities  of  infinite  and  eternal  moment  to  us,  verities,  however, 
which  lie  wholly  beyond  the  possible  reach  of  our  unaided  faculties.  All  our 
light  here  must  undeniably  come  directly  and  exclusively  from  God  Himself. 
To  thesd  inner  and  higher  and  most  momentous  of  all  verities,  revela- 
tion proft^ssedly  introduces  us.  Natural  Theology  reveals  God  to  us  in 
His  original  relations  to  the  universe,  and  to  us  as  mere  rational  beings. 
Inspired  Theology  reveals  God  to  us  in  His  new,  self-moved,  self-deter 
mined,  and  divinely  adapted  relations  to  our  actual  conditions  and  neces- 
sities, not  merely  as  rationals,  but  as  sinners  in  the,  to  us,  remediless  riiiu 
of  sin.  What  these  new  relations  are,  supposing  them  to  exist,  on  what 
conditions  the  promises  of  *  life  eternal '  may  become  available  to  us,  and 
•what  new  light  the  revelation  of  these  new  relations  may  throw  upon  the 
Divine  perfections  and  glory,  and  what,  for  the  want  of  better  terms,  we 
may  denominate  the  modes  of  the  Divine  existence  and  activity — all  must  be 
to  us  blank  midnight  but  as  we  are  directly  and  immediately,  instrument- 
ally  it  maybe,  'taught  of  God.'  The  same  holds  equally  true  of  our 
special  duties  and  destinj'  in  these  new  relations.  As  the  Author  of  this 
new  life  and  the  revealer  of  God  in  these  new  relations,  Christ  affirms 
Himself  to  be  *  the  Light  of  the  world.' 

Christian  Theism  confirms  and  reaffirm.^  the  validity  of  the  Doctrine  of  God 

as  taught  by  Natural  Theology. 
We  now  notice  one  other  relation  of  Christian  Theism  to  the  teachings 
of  Natural  Theology,  a  relation,  in  our  judgment,  singularly  overlooked 
by  Christian  Theists.  Christian  Theism  furnishes  an  independent  proof 
of  the  being  and  government  of  God,  a  form  of  proof  which  would,  upon 
purely  scientific  grounds,  have  absolute  validity  did  none  other  exist. 
The  occurrence  of  a  single  supernatural  fact  in  nature,  a  fact  which  cannot 
be  accounted  for  by  reference  to  any  inhering  law  of  nature,  absolutely 
evinces  the  existence  in  and  over  nature  of  a  corresponding  supernatural 
power.  The  great  central  facts  recorded  in  Scripture,  admitting  their 
actual  occurrence,  furnish  the  same  proof  of  the  doctrine  of  God,  that  the 
known  facts  of  astronomy  do  of  the  truth  of  the  Copernican  System.  Nor 
does  true  science  require  any  more  valid  proof  of  the  reality  of  super- 
natural, than  it  does  of  that  of  astronomical  facts.  All  that  real  science 
requires  in  any  case  is  evidence  having  the  known  characteristics  of  ab- 
solute validity.  All  are  aware  that  there  are  forms  of  evidence  which 
often  prove  deceptive,  and  that  there  are  other  forms  that  never  do,  and 
never  can,  deceive.      Nor  is  it  difficult  to  furnish  the  criteria  which  dis- 


TflEISM  PROPER,  AND  CHRISTIAN  THEISM.  367 

tlngnisli  the  former  kind  from  the  latter.  Were  it  fully  ascertained  that 
the  evidence  on  which  the  deduction  is  based,  that  the  sun  is  the  centre 
of  the  solar  system,  is  of  the  clasi  first  designated,  that  one  fact  would 
wholly  invalidate  the  claims  of  the  Copernicaa  System  to  our  regard.  We 
believe  in  that  system  because  the  facts  adduced,  supposing  them  real, 
absolutely  imply  the  truth  of  the  system — and  because  the  reality  of 
the  facts  is  evinced  by  evidence  of  no  doubtful  character,  evidence  which 
never  does,  and  never  can,  deceive.  Suppose  now  that  the  occurrence  of 
facts  of  an  undeniably  supernatural  character  is  affirmed  by  evidence,  the 
same  in  kind  and  degree,  evidence  which  never  does  deceive,  and  the 
invalidity  of  which  is  absolutely  inexplicable.  We  should  subvert  utterly 
the  foundation  of  all  the  physical  sciences  if  we  should  then  deny  the 
occurrence  of  these  facts,  or  refuse  to  admit  the  validity  of  all  the  deduc- 
tions which  they  necessarily  yield.  Mr.  Hume,  with  the  entire  school  of 
unbelief,  in  his  famous  argument  against  the  reality  of  miracles,  an  argu- 
ment based  upon  the  deceptive  character  of  human  testimony,  forgot  that 
there  are  two  kinds  of  testimony — one  which  often  deceives — and  another 
which  never  does  misleail.  Let  the  evidence  of  miracles  furnished  by 
testimony  be  wholly  of  this  latter  kind,  and  let  that  evidence  be  con- 
firmed by  circumstances  wliich  never  encircle  a  falsehood,  and  affirm  its 
truth — in  such  a  case  we  displace  ourselves  from  the  sphere  of  true 
science  if  we  deny  the  reality  of  the  facts,  or  the  validity  of  the  de- 
ductions which  said  facts  yield. 

We  have,  then,  the  same  right  to  argue  from  the  supernatural  facts 
recorded  in  Scripture  to  the  existence  and  agency  in  and  over  nature  of  a 
personal  God,  that  we  can  have  to  argue  from  the  known  facts  of  astronomy 
to  the  truth  of  the  Copernican  System.  In  both  cases  in  common  the  same 
inquiries  are  to  be  raised  in  respect  to  the  reality  of  the  facts  adduced,  and 
the  same  identical  criteria  are  to  be  applied  in  determining  the  validity  of 
the  evidence  presented  of  their  occurrence. 

We  do  not  argue,  it  should  be  borne  in  mind,  the  validity  of  the  claims 
of  Theism  from  the  testimony  of  the  Scriptures  to  their  truthfulness. 
Ifor  do  we,  in  this  connection,  argue  their  Divine  origin  and  authority 
from  these  events.  All  such  questions  are  reserved  for  another  depart- 
ment of  our  inquiries.  What  we  do  argue  in  this  connection  is  this — 
that  the  facts  recorded  in  Scripture,  granting  their  occurrence,  do  furnish 
as  valid  a  scientific  basis  for  the  claims  of  Theism,  as  those  of  astronomy 
do  for  the  truth  of  the  Copernican  System,  or  as  any  facts  can  furnish 
for  any  deduction  whatever  in  any  of  the  physical  or  metaphysical  sciences; 
and,  as  we  shall  hereafter  show,  we  have  evidence,  the  same  in  kind  and 
degree,  of  the  reality  of  the  facts  in  the  former  case  as  we  have  in  any 
of  the  latter  cases.  Such  are  the  undeniable  relations  of  Christian  Theidui 
to  Natural  Theology. 


36S  A  CRITICAL  HJ STORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


SECTIOiT  IL 

THE    RELATIONS   OF    CHRISTIAN    THEISM    TO    THE    SCIENCE  OF 

COSMOLOGY. 

To  have  a  valid  Ontology,  that  is,  a  true  science  of  Being  and  its  Laws, 
all  actual  facts  must  be  taken  into  our  reckoning,  and  be  fully  accounted 
for.  If  any  real  fact,  or  class  cf  facts,  is  ignored,  or  repudiated  as  unreal, 
we  should  of  necessity  rear  up  a  structure  not  of  true,  but  of  false  science. 
"We  should  assume  forms  of  non-being  as  realities,  and  class  realities 
among  'things  that  are  not.'  Facts  are  adamantine  realities  'which 
cannot  be  shaken,'  and  every  real  fact  will  have  its  proper  place  and 
influence,  and  be  fully  accounted  for  in  every  scieutiiically  constructed 
system  of  Cosmology.  In  the  construction  of  most  systems,  facts  are 
manufactured  or  ignored,  assumed  or  repudiated,  as  existing  exigencies 
require. 

The  actual  occurrence  of  a  single  supernatural  fact  absolutely  implies, 
as  we  have  before  said,  the  real  existence,  in  and  over  nature,  of  a  super- 
natural power.  When  the  occurrence  of  such  an  event  has  been  verified 
by  valid  evidence,  the  existence  of  the  implied  power  must  constitute  an 
essential  element  and  feature  of  our  cosiuological  system.  Otherwise  the 
system  which  we  shall  construct  will  be  a  lie.  In  the  presence  of  such  a 
verified  power,  every  true  philosopher  will  be  very  modest  in  his  affirma- 
tions about  the  extent  to  which  passing  events  around  us  are  under  the 
control  of  mere  naked  physical  law,  or  are  determined,  without  violating 
any  such  law,  by  the  action  of  this  existing  supernatural  power.  Ho  will 
perceive  nothing  incredible  in  the  idea  that  natural  law  itself  may  be  so 
far  under  the  control  of  the  supernatural,  that  God,  without  violating  any 
mental  or  physical  law,  may  determine  the  current  of  events  in  specific 
accordance  with  the  wants  of  mind,  and  be  continuously  manifested  to 
the  pure  in  heart  as  a  hearer  of  prayer.  The  pedant  Scientist,  on  the 
other  hand,  will  imperiously  dogmatize  as  if  he  were  truly  omniscient, 
just  where  his  ignorance  is  and  must,  undeniabl}',  bo  absolute.  Listen, 
for  a  moment,  to  the  dogmatic  dicta  of  our  embryo  scientist.  ^  Fact  I 
know,  and  Law  I  know.'  My  dear  sir,  should  you  ever  become  older  and 
■wiser  than  you  now  are,  if  *  wisdom  shall  enter  into  thine  heart,  and 
knowledge  become  pleasant  unto  thy  soul,'  you  will  blush  Avith  shame  at 
the  remembrance  of  such  a  presumptuous  and  absurd  utterance  as  that. 
You  are  omniscient  neither  in  respect  to  facts  nor  the  ultimate  law  which 
determines  their  occurrence.  Your  ignorance  is  absolute  in  regard  to  the 
extent  to  which  the  natural  may  be  determined  by  the  supernatural  in 


CHRISTIAN  THEISM  AND  COSMOLOGY.  369 

the  current  of  fiicts  which  are  moving  by  you.  As  a  consequence,  you 
stand  convicted  of  imperiously  and  senselessly  dogmatizing  in  respect  to 
both  universal  *  Fact '  and  *  Law,*  of  which  *  One  part — one  little  part — 
you  dimly  scan.' 

ThA  Question  of  the  Reality  of  these  Facts,  to  be  determined,  first  of  all, 
wholly  irrespective  of  their  hearing  upon  the  Claims  of  the  Christian 
Religion. 

The  great  central  facts  under  consideration  do  have,  as  we  have  shown, 
their  actual  occurrence  being  admitted,  a  fundamental  bearing  in  deter- 
mining a  valid  system  of  Cosmology.  The  same  facts,  on  the  same 
admission,  may  have,  and  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  do  have,  a  similar 
bearing  upon  the  claims  of  the  Christian  religion.  In  determining  the 
question  whether  those  affirmed  facts  did,  or  did  not  occur,  all  inquiry  in 
respect  to  their  hearings  in  any  direction  is  to  be  left  wholly,  for  the  time 
being,  out  of  the  account.  If  the  facts  did  occur,  and  did  occur  as 
specific  attestations  of  the  truth  of  a  particular  reh'gion,  they  do,  un- 
deniably, verify  the  existence  of  a  supernatural  and  Divine  power  in  and 
over  nature,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Divine  origin  and  authority  of  that 
religion  on  the  other.  The  question  of  the  actuality  of  these  facts,  how- 
ever, is  to  be  determined  by  itself,  and  that  by  a  rigid  application  of  the 
laws  of  historic  evidence.  For  aught  we  know  to  the  contrary,  God  may 
in  times  past  have  interposed,  and  may  interpose  in  the  future,  in  forms 
undeniably  supernatural,  and  that  without  revealing  the  specific  reasons 
for  such  interpositions,  His  object  being,  it  may  be,  simply  to  remind  His 
rational  offspring  of  His  presence  and  agency  in  nature.  It  may  be,  on 
the  other  hand,  that  in  connection  with  such  interpositions  the  specific 
reason  for  their  occurrence  has  been  also  revealed.  All  this,  however, 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  question,  did  or  did  not  these  events 
occui: 

SECTION  m. 

RELATIONS  OF '  SUPERNATURAL  EVENTS,  AND  THE  ACTION  OF  A 
SUPERNATURAL  POWER  IN  NATURE,  TO  THE  SO-CALLED  LAWS 
OF  NATURE. 

Ip  a  supernatural  power  actually  exists  in  and  over  nature,  the  Will  of 
that  power  must  be  the  supreme  law  of  nature  itself,  and  the  ultimate  and 
all-determining  cause  of  the  current  of  events  around  us,  and  each  specific 
order  of  events  must  be  an  expression  of  the  Will  of  that  sovereign 
power.  If  the  being  in  whom  this  power  resides  should  choose  that  the 
order  of  events  shall  be,  for  the  most  part,  in  the  fixed  direction  of  uniform 
antecedence  and  consequence,  but  that  as  occasion  requires  there  shall  be 

24 


370  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

special  departures  from  this  principle,  there  would  be  in  such  an  arrange- 
ment an  absolute  conformity  to  the  supreme  law  of  nature,  and  no  more 
violation  of  any  specific  law  in  one  case  than  in  the  other.  It  is  an 
immutable  law  of  each  physical  substance  in  nature,  that  its  motion  shall 
ever  be  in  the  fixed  direction  of  the  strongest  force  acting  upon  it  at 
each  successive  moment.  It  is,  as  we  say,  a  fixed  law  of  water  and 
kindred  fluids  to  run  down  an  inclined  plane.  Suppose  that  by  some 
attracting  cause  far  stronger  than  that  to  which  they  are  now  subject, 
they  should  be  drawn  in  the  opposite  direction.  Their  flow  up,  instea<l 
of  down,  the  plane  referred  to,  would  in  that  case  be  just  as  natural,  and 
as  accordant  with  all  existing  laws  of  nature,  as  in  their  present  direction. 
Any  change  whatever  produced  in  nature  by  the  action  of  a  cause  more 
powerful  than  those  now  determining  the  current  of  events,  is  as  natural 
and  accordant  with  all  existing  laws,  as  any  other  event  can  be.  A 
supernatural,  supposing  it  actual,  is  no  wwnatural  event,  and  its  occurrence 
implies  the  violation  of  no  existing  law,  but  absolute  accordance  with 
every  such  law. 

SECTION  IV. 

SUPERNATURAL,  OR  MIRACULOUS  EVENTS  DEFINED  —  THEIR 
POSSIBILITY,  AND  PROBABILITY— THEIR  BEARING  UPON  THE 
CLAIMS  OF  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION,  Etc. 

Stich  Events  Defined. 
What  then  is  a  supernatural,  or  miraculous  event,  as  distinguished  from 
facts  of  ordinary  occurrence  1  The  real  distinction,  we  reply,  lies  here. 
Whenever  events  occur  in  the  fixed  order  of  antecedence  and  consequence 
the  immediate  cause  is  not  manifested.  Their  occurrence  equally  accords 
■with  two  distinct  and  opposite  hypotheses,  and  therefore  implies  the  truth 
of  neither  in  opposition  to  the  other — the  hypothesis  of  Divine  Causation 
— and  that  of  natural  law.  When,  on  the  other  hand,  an  event  occurs 
in  such  relations  and  circumstances,  as  necessarily  imply  its  production 
through  the  immediate  agency  of  a  supernatural  cause,  such  event,  to 
distinguish  it  from  those  of  ordinary  occurrence,  is  denominated  super- 
natural, or  miraculous.  It  is  not  thus  designated  because  its  occurrence 
was,  in  itself,  less  natural  or  more  contradictory  to  any  natural  law,  than 
is  any  other  event,  but  because  the  former  does,  and  the  latter  does  not 
imply,  and  thus  reveal,  its  immediate  cause.  A  supernatural,  <yr  miraculous 
event,  then,  is  one  vjhose  occurrence  cannot  be  accounted  for  through  natural 
law — an  event,  therefoi'e,  which  implies  the  existence  and  action  in  nature  of  a 
supernatural  cause,  and  the  presence  and  action  of  tlmt  cause  in  the  produc- 
tion of  said  event.  A  supernatural  event,  or  a  miracle,  implies  the  violation 
or  suspension  of  no  existing  law,  but  as  perfectly  as  any  other  event 


SUPERNATURAL,  OR  MIRACULOUS  EVENTS  DEFINED.      yj\ 

accords  with  the  ultimate  and  supreme  law  to  which  all  facts  are  sub- 
ordinate, and  with  the  nature  of  all  existing  substances.  It  does,  how- 
ever, imply  such  a  change  in  the  common  and  visible  order  of  events,  as 
absolutely  to  imply  the  presence  and  immediate  action  of  a  supernatural 
power.  If  God  should,  as  He  often  may  do,  produce  invisibly  to  Hi^ 
creatures  changes  in  the  ordinary  course  of  events,  such  changes,  though 
in  themselves  as  really  supernatural  as  any  others,  would  be  no  miracle 
to  us.  To  be  to  us  really  supernatural,  they  must  be  events  of  which  we 
can  take  such  cognizance,  that  we  can  know  that  their  immediate  cause 
must  be  supernatural. 

Conditions  of  the  Possibility,  or  Probability  of  the  Occurrence  of  Supernatural 

Events. 
If  a  supernatural  power  does  exist  in  and  over  nature,  then  undeniably 
the  actual  occurrence  of  supernatural,  or  miraculous  events,  is  in  itself 
just  as  possible  as  that  of  any  other  event,  actual  or  conceivable.  The 
occurrence  of  such  events,  granting  the  existence  of  the  power  under 
consideration,  is  just  as  probable  as  is  the  probability  that  exigencies  may 
arise  demanding  such  interpositions,  and  is  absolutely  certain  whenever 
such  exigencies  do  arise.  The  impossibility  of  the  occurrence  of  super- 
natural events  can  be  affirmed  but  upon  one  exclusive  condition — an 
absolute  denial  of  the  existence  of  a  supernatural  power.  Their  impioba- 
bilily  can  be  affirmed  but  upon  a  denial  of  the  probability  of  the  existence, 
in  the  past  or  future,  of  exigencies  requiring  their  occurrence.  The 
ceriaintif  of  their  non-occurrence  can  be  affirmed,  the  existence  of  the 
power  referred  to  being  admitted,  but  upon  an  absolute  denial  of  the 
occurrence,  during  the  eternity  past  and  the  eternity  to  come,  of  any 
exigency  demanding  such  interposition.  We  hold  that  no  propositions 
can  have  greater  intuitive  and  demonstrative  certainty  than  those  above 
presented.  Omniscience  is  necessary  for  a  valid  denial  of  all  past  and  of 
all  future  miracles. 

The  Knowledge  which  all  who  affirm  the  Impossibility,  Improbability,  or  Non- 
actuality  of  Supernatural  Events,  do,  in  reality,  assume  the  possession  of. 
We  have  already  rendered  it  demonstrably  evident,  that  the  being  of  a 
personal  God,  or  the  existence  of  a  supernatural  power  in  and  over  nature, 
cannot  by  any  possibility  be  disproved,  and  that  against  the  doctrine 
no  form  or  degree  of  positive  evidence  can  be  adduced.  There  is,  unde- 
niably, but  two  conceivable,  and  therefore  possible  hypotheses  of  ultimate 
causation — the  Theistic,  and  tliat  of  Natural  Law — and  one  of  these  must 
be  true,  and  the  other  false.  No  form  of  valid  proof,  or  positive  evidence, 
can  be  adduced  in  favour  of  the  latter  hypothesis  and  against  the  former, 
because  that  all  facts  deducible  in  favour  of  the  latter,  are  equally  explic- 

24—2 


372  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

able  on  the  former  hypothesis.  Nor  can  any  antecedent  probability  be 
adduced  against  the  Theistic  hypothesis,  and  in  favour  of  that  of  Natural 
Law.  Against  the  possibility  of  miracles,  therefore,  no  form  of  proof, 
positive  evidence,  or  antecedent  probability  can  be  adduced.  The  same 
holds  equally  in  respect  to  the  idea  of  their  probability,  and  actuality.  To 
know  that  such  occurrences  are  impossible  and  unreal,  we  must  know 
that  a  supernatural  power  in  and  over  nature  does  not  exist.  To  know 
this,  we  must,  undeniably,  be  possessed,  of  absolute  omniscience.  We 
must  have  an  absolute  knowledge  of  all  events,  past,  present,  and  to  come, 
and  of  all  substances  and  causes  existing  and  acting  in  nature,  and  in 
infinite  space.  If  there  is  any  event  of  which  we  have  not  an  absolute  know- 
ledge, that  event  may  be,  or  may  have  been,  produced  by  a  supernatural 
cause.  If  there  is  any  cause  existing  and  acting  in  nature,  or  in  infinite 
space,  a  cause  of  which  we  have  not  a  similar  knowledge,  that  cause, 
undeniably,  may  be  a  supernatural  one.  All  scientists  who  affirm  the 
impossibility  of  supernatural  events  do,  in  fact,  arrogate  to  themselves  the 
possession  of  absolute  omniscience.  They  really  and  truly  profess  an 
absolute  knowledge  of  all  events  of  the  eternity  past,  and  of  the  eternity 
to  come,  and  of  all  causes  acting  in  infinite  space,  and  eternal  duration.  On 
no  other  condition  than  the  actual  possession  of  such  knowledge,  can  they, 
without  infinite  criminality  and  presumption,  deny  the  possibility,  proba- 
bilitj',  or  actuality,  of  supernatural  events  in  nature.  When  they  make 
such  denials,  they  positively  assume  to  themselves,  we  repeat,  the  actual 
possession  of  an  absolute  omniscience  of  all  events  of  the  past  and  future, 
and  of  all  causes  existing  and  acting  in  infinite  space  and  eternal  duration. 
Well  may  every  sober  thinker,  in  view  of  the  infinite  impiety,  folly, 
presumption,  and  arrogance  of  such  men,  exclaim,  *  O  ray  soul,  come  not 
thou  into  their  secret ;  aud  into  their  assembly,  mine  honour,  be  not  thou 
united.' "  Thinkers  cannot  be  innocent  who  arrogate  to  themselves  the 
actual  possession  of  a  perfect  knowledge  of  all  events  of  the  past  and 
future,  of  all  exigencies  which  have  arisen  during  the  eternity  past,  or  which 
may  arise  during  the  eternity  to  come,  and  of  all  causes  which  do  exist 
and  act  in  infinite  space  and  eternal  duration.  We  affirm,  without  fear 
of  contradiction,  that  these  men  are  not  possessed  of  the  knowledge  of  a 
single  fact  which,  in  the  remotest  degree,  indicates  the  real  impossibility, 
improbability,  or  non-actuality  of  supernatural  events. 

Conditions  on  which  wr  are  Absolutklt  Bound  to  admit  thb 
Actual  Occurrence  op  Supernatural  Events. 
Against  the  possibility  and  actuality  of  supernatural  events,  as  we  have 
seen,  no  form  or  degree  of  real  proof,  positive  evidence,  or  even  ante- 
cedent probability  can  be  adduced.  On  what  condition,  then,  should  we 
hold  ourselves  bound  to  admit  the  actual  occurrence  of  such  events  in 


SUPERNATURAL,  OR  MIRACULOUS  EVENTS  DEFINED.      373 

any  given  case?  On  this  one  exclusive  condition,  we  answer:  the  actual 
presentation  of  that  form  and  degree  of  evidence  knoivii  to  be  valid  in  all  other 
cases.  Just  this  and  nothing  more  nor  less  liave  we  a  right  to  require, 
and  just  this  we  are  bound  to  require  in  all  such  cases.  Whenever  the 
occurrence  of  an  event,  undeniably  supernatural,  has  been  fully  verified 
by  such  evidence,  we  violate  all  the  laws  and  principles  of  scientific  in- 
duction and  deduction,  should  we  withhold  a  full  and  prompt  assent  to 
the  actuality  of  the  event  itself,  and  to  all  the  consequences  which  the 
fact  implies.  Against  the  occurrence  of  the  fact,  no  form  or  degree  of 
real  proof,  positive  evidence,  or  antecedent  probability  can  be  adduced. 
In  its  verification,  we  have  just  that  form  and  degree  of  positive  evidence 
which  never  in  any  other  case  misleads,  and  which  everywhere  dis- 
tinguishes the  real  from  the  unreal.  2^o  higher,  or  more  abundant, 
evidence  can  rationally  be  required  for  miracles  than  for  any  other  events 
in  respect  to  which  certainty  is  demanded.  No  more  valid  evidence  have 
M'e  a  right  to  require,  as  the  basis  of  religious  belief,  than  is  properly 
demanded  as  the  basis  of  implicit  belief  in  the  science  of  Astronomy  or 
any  other  of  the  h  posteriori  sciences.  When  the  existence  of  Jesus 
Christ  and  the  reality  of  the  'mighty  works'  ascribed  to, Him,  have  been 
verified  to  us  by  a  rigid  application  of  all  the  known  laws  and  principles 
of  historic  verity,  we  justly  forfeit  the  eternal  life  which  He  came  to 
procure  for  and  reveal  to  us,  if  we  refuse  to  believe  in  Him.  The  senti- 
ment 80  often  repeated,  that  higher  evidence  is  demanded  to  establish  the 
occurrence  of  a  supernatural  event,  than  is  required  to  verify,  with  perfect 
certainty,  other  classes  of  facts,  is  false  in  fact,  and  of  most  dangerous 
tendency.  If  higher  degrees  of  evidence  are  to  be  demanded  in  the 
former  than  in  cases  of  the  latter  kind,  who  can  tell  us  what  the  form 
and  degree  of  this  higher  evidence  is  ?  If  evidence,  known  to  be  per- 
fectly valid  for  certainty  in  all  other  cases,  is  not  to  be  received  as  valid 
in  the  case  of  supernatural  events,  no  one  can  inform  us  when  and  where 
assent  becomes  a  duty,  and  dissent  a  sin.  When  evidence,  known  t<» 
have  full  validity  in  all  other  cases,  is  presented  in  verification  of  tliH 
occurrence  of  a  supernatural  event,  obligation  for  assent  becomes  absoluio 
and  the  criminality  of  dissent  infinite. 

Conditions  on  which  we  may  Properly  withhold  Assent  to  the  Actuality  of 
Supeitiatural  Events  affirmed  to  have  occurred. 

The  conditions  on  which  we  may  rationally  and  virtuously  withhold 
assent  to  a  statement,  that  a  miraculous  event  has  occurred  iu  any  givei. 
case,  now  become  obvious.     They  are  the  following ; 

1.  The  event  may  be  in  itself  not  of  a  supernatural  character,  but  of 
naturally  impossible  occurrence.  We  meet  with  a  statement,  for  example, 
liot  that  an  event  has  occuired  in  such  relations  and  ciicumstunces  as 


374  ^  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PniLOSOPHY. 

imply  the  presence  and  action  of  a  supernatural  cause,  but  that  God  had 
actually  caused  the  same  thing,  at  the  same  moment,  to  exist,  and  not  to 
exist.  We  should  dementate  ourselves,  if  we  should  seriously  inquire 
■whether  such  an  event  had,  or  had  not,  occurred.  Those  who  confound 
events  which  no  power  can  produce,  with  those  which  a  supernatural 
power,  supposing  it  to  exist,  may  produce,  are  without  excuse. 

2.  There  may  be,  in  certain  cases,  a  reasonable  doubt  about  the 
character  of  the  event,  supposing  it  to  be  real.  An  event  may  occur,  an 
event  inexplicable  through  any  causes  known  to  us.  Yet  its  character 
may  be  such  as  not  necessarily  to  imply  the  presence  and  action,  in  its 
production,  of  a  supernatural  cause.  In  all  such  cases  assent  to  the 
event  as  supernatural  is  not  demanded.  We  may,  on  the  other  hand, 
properly  wait  for  additional  light.  Our  assent  is  demanded  when,  and 
only  when,  the  character  of  the  event  as  supernatural  cannot  be  a  matter 
of  reasonable  doubt,  and  when  its  occurrence  is  verified  by  evidence 
known  to  be  valid  in  all  other  cases. 

3.  The  obvious  absence  of  evidence  which  is  required  in  all  cases 
where  strict  certainty  is  demanded  is  the  only  other  proper  ground  of 
dissent  in  reference  to  cases  under  consideration.  If  our  assent  to  a 
miracle  is  demanded  on  the  basis  of  evidence,  known  to  be  deceptive  in 
other  eases,  duty  demands  our  dissent.  Faith,  as  Christian  virtue,  is 
absolute  fidelity  to  valid  evidence  or  rational  conviction.  Unbalief,  as  sin, 
and  affirmed  as  such  in  the  Scriptures,  is  infidelity  to  valid  evidence  or 
rational  conviction.  'He  that  doeth  evil  hateth  the  lighfc,  and  will  not 
come  to  the  light.'  The  grounds  of  our  revealed  obligation  to  credit  as 
real  the  supernatural  events  recorded  as  such  in  the  Scriptures,  are — that 
they  are  not,  in  themselves,  events  of  impossible  occurrence — that,  grant- 
ing their  actuality,  their  supernatural  character  cannot  be  denied — and 
that  they  are  affirmed  as  real  by  evidence,  which,  in  all  other  cases  in 
which  strict  certainty  is  required,  has  absolute  validity. 

Relations  of  these  Events  to  the  Christian  Beligion. 

For  aught  that  we  know,  or  can  know  to  the  contrary,  God  may,  as 
we  have  said  before,  change  the  visible  order  of  events  in  forms  which 
imply  the  presence  and  action  in  their  occurrence  of  a  supernatural  power, 
and  this  without  any  revealed  reasons  for  such  interpositions.  This, 
however,  is  not  true  of  the  supernatural  events  revealed  in  the  Christian 
Scriptures.  These  events  all  stand  before  us  as  specific  attestations  of  the 
truth  of  this  religion.  The  actuality  of  these  events  being  granted,  no 
one  will  deny  that  Christianity  lifts  its  divine  form  before  us  as  the  super- 
naturally  revealed  and  attested  religion  of  God. 

Nor  will  any  sober  thinker  question  the  supernatural  character  of  these 
events,  their  actual  occurrence  being  granted.     We  must  absolutely  deny 


S  UPERNA  TURAL,  OR  MIR  A  CULOUS  E  VENTS  DEFINED.      375 

their  occurrence,  or  as  absolutely  affirm,  with  the  magicians  of  old,  *  This 
is  the  fiuger  of  God.'  But  one  question  remains  for  scientific  determina- 
tion— to  wit.  Did  these  events  actually  occur  1  This  question  of  fact,  as 
we  have  shown,  is  to  be  determined  by  a  rigid  application  of  the  laws  of 
historic  verity.  If  in  the  light  of  the  acknowledged  Criteria  which,  in 
all  other  cases,  distinguish  the  true  from  the  false,  and  the  strictly  certain 
from  the  uncertain,  they  take  rank  among  the  true  and  the  certain,  they 
stand  before  us  as  absolutely  verified  facts  of  actual  occurrence. 

Admitting  the  actuality  of  these  events,  we  must  also  admit  the  divinity 
of  the  Christian  Religion,  or  affirm  that  God  has  actually  attested  the 
truth  of  a  lie.  These  same  remarks  apply  equally  to  all  the  ijarticular 
truths  of  this  religion.  These  supernatural  attestations  sustain  the  same 
relations  to  each  specific  truth  that  they  do  to  Christianity  itself.  Every- 
where they  lift  their  heaven-illumined  summits  amid  the  great  revela- 
tions of  this  religion,  divinely  attesting  the  truth  of  each  and  all  in 
common. 

Eelations  of  these  Events  to  the  Christian  Scriptures. 

The  Christian  Religion,  with  all  its  specific  teachings,  exists  as  a 
revelation  from  God  nowhere  but  in  the  Christian  Scriptures.  The 
supernatural  events  therein  recorded,  have  the  identical  relations  to  these 
writings  that  the  same  events  have  to  the  religion  of  which  said  writings 
are  a  record.  To  deny  the  proper  inspiration  of  the  record,  and  to  affirm 
that  the  religion  which  they  record  is  a  divinely  attested  religion,  involves 
a  gross  and  palpable  contradiction.  Let  us  suppose  that  in  recording  these 
events,  together  with  the  principles  and  doctrines  contained  in  the  same 
record,  these  writers  were  under  no,  to  us,  divinely  attested  supernatural 
guidance  ',  that,  on  the  other  hand,  they  merely  wrote  out,  as  others  might 
have  done,  facts  as  they  saw  them,  and  doctrines  as  they  actually  held 
them.  We  should,  on  that  hypothesis,  be  bound  to  regard  the  facts 
recorded  as  supernatural  events  which  diviuely  attest  no  religion  what- 
ever. Had  Josephus,  or  Tacitus,  after  the  appearance  of  the  Four  Gospels, 
compiled  the  same  into  a  single  treatise,  and  interspersed  through  the 
same  his  own  honest  views  of  doctrine  and  duty,  the  facts  recorded  would 
have  the  same  identical  relations  to  the  doctrinal  and  moral  teachings  of 
the  Gospel  according  to  Tacitus  or  Josephus,  that  the  same  facts  do  have, 
on  the  present  hypothesis,  to  the  Gospel  of  Matthew  or  John.  A  denial 
of  the  Divine  authority  of  the  Christian  Records,  involves  a  corresponding 
denial  of  the  Divine  authority  of  the  religion  which  they  professedly 
record,  and  Christianity  stands  before  us  as  a  religion  no  more  Divinely 
attested  than  is  that  of  Brahm  or  of  Buddha.  We  should  on  this 
,  hypothesis,  we  repeat,  be  bound  to  regard  the  Scripture  facts  as  super- 
natural, but  as  having  occurred  for  no  revealed  reasons  whatever. 


376  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

The  events  under  consideration  do,  in  fact  and  form,  stand  before  us 
not  only  as  Divine  attestations  of  the  Christian  Eeligion,  but  equally  so 
of  the  Divine  authority  of  the  writings  which  record  that  religion.  The 
supernatural  events  recorded  in  Scripture  everywhere  present  themselves 
as  specific  attestations,  not  only  of  the  truth  of  a  given  religion,  but 
equally  so,  of  Moses  and  the  Prophets,  of  Christ  and  His  Apostles,  as  the 
divinely  commissioned  revelators  of  the  specific  truths  of  that  religion. 
The  miracles  performed  through  Moses  before  Pharaoh  and  the  Israelites, 
for  example,  were  performed  for  two  specifically  revealed  reasons — to 
verify  his  particular  utterances,  and  verify  him,  as  *  God's  ]\Iouth '  to 
those  to  whom  those  utterances  were  addressed.  The  fire  that  descended 
on  Carmel  in  answer  to  the  prayer  of  Elijah,  descended  to  verity  two  specific 
revelations — that  Jehovah  is  the  only  true  God,  and  that  Elijah  was  His 
Prophet.  '  The  mighty  works '  performed  by  Christ,  as  he  specifically 
informs  us,  divinely  attested  both  the  truth  of  his  particular  utterances, 
and  verified  Him  as  a  *  Teacher  sent  from  God.'  Christ,  also,  gave  absolute 
authority  to  His  Apostles  as  revelators  and  teachers  of  truth.  '  Whatso- 
ever ye  shall  bind  on  earth  shall  be  bound  in  heaven,  and  whatsoever  ye 
shall  loose  on  earth  shall  be  loosed  in  heaven.'  Christ  not  only  taught 
the  divinity  of  certain  truths  revealed  in  the  Scriptures,  but  equally  the 
absolute  authority  of  the  writings  themselves.  '  It  is  written  ' — '  The 
Scriptures  must  be  fulfilled.'  '  The  Scriptures  cannot  be  broken.'  *  Thus 
it  is  written,  and  thus  it  behoved  Christ  to  suffer.'  'Think  not,  that  I 
am  come  to  destroy  the  law  or  the  prophets  :  I  am  not  come  to  destroy, 
but  to  fulfil.'  The  Apostles,  also,  as  divinely  commissioned  teachers  of 
truth  give  the  same  testimony  to  the  Divine  origin  and  authority  of  the 
Scripture  records.  *  Holy  men  of  God  spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the 
Holy  Ghost.'  *  All  scripture  is  given  by  inspiration  of  God.'  The  super- 
natural events  under  consideration  do  not  stand  before  us  as  meaningless 
interpositions  of  Divine  power;  nor  as  attestations  of  a  religion  nowhere 
divinely  attested  ;  but  as  diverse  attestations  of  the  absolute  authority  of 
specified  'teachers  sent  from  God,'  and,  consequently,  of  the  Divine 
authority  of  specific  records  of  a  religion  divinely  attested  to  us  through 
such  teachers.  To  deny  that  the  Scriptures  are  to  us  of  Divine  authority 
in  matters  of  belief  and  conduct  is  to  affirm  that  the  supernatural  events 
which  they  record  were  produced  for  no  assignable  reasons  whatever.  To 
prove  the  reality  of  these  supernatural  events  implies  a  corresponding 
proof,  not  only  of  the  divinity  of  Christianity  itself,  but  also  of  the 
Divine  origin  and  authority  of  the  Scriptures  which  embody  the  truths 
of  this  religion. 

There  can  be  no  more  fundamental  form  of  error  than  is  embraced  in 
the  dogma,  that  Christianity  itself  is  from  God,  and  is  contained  some-, 
where  in  the  Scriptures;  but  that  these  Scriptures  are  themselves  of 


SUPERNATURAL,  OR  MIRACULOUS  EVENTS  DEFINED.      377 

human  origin  and  authority.  It  is,  in  fact,  to  assure  us  that  the  needlo 
is  somewhere  in  the  hay-mow,  and  then  to  tell  us  to  find  it  if  we  can. 
Suppose  that  God  did  reveal  a  religion,  and  then  left  the  matter  to  indi- 
viduals who  might  choose  to  attempt  to  record  it  to  express  their  own 
apprehensions  of  that  religion.  Who  would  vouch  for  the  correctness  of 
such  apprehensions,  in  the  first  case,  and  in  the  next  for  the  correctness 
with  which  these  uninspired  men  have  expressed  their  own  views  upon 
the  subject?  Who  can  determine  how  much,  and  what  form  of  error, 
may  be  intermingled  with  the  truth  in  their  apprehensions  and  represen- 
tations? To  us,  error  and  truth,  as  intermingled  in  these  writings,  if 
they  are  intermingled  at  all,  are  alike  divinely  attested,  or  Christianity 
itself  is  in  no  form  thus  attested. 

The  idea  which  some  appear  to  entertain,  that  the  mcal^  but  not  wriUer, 
utterances  of  the  Prophets  and  Apostles  were  of  Divine  authority,  is  one 
of  the  most  absurd  forms  of  error  that  ever  appeared.  The  terms  '  what- 
soever' and  'whosesoever,'  in  the  commission  to  'bind  and  loose/  'remit 
and  retain,'  must  have  a  special  reference  and  application,  if  anywhere,  to 
their  written,  that  is  to  their  permanently  recorded,  utterances.  If  their 
written  utterances  do  not  bind,  nothing  they  ever  said  could  have  bound 
anybody.  WUl  anyone  put  this  construction  upon  our  Saviour's  words  ? 
*  Whatsoever  (except  when  you  write)  ye  shall  bind  on  earth,  shall  be 
bound  in  heaven.' 


SECTION  V. 

REVELATION  AND  INSPIRATION. 

Terms  Defined. 
The  terms  revelation  and  inspiration  represent  two  distinct  and  separate 
ideas.  The  former  represents  the  act  of  God  in  making  known  his  truth 
to  creatures.  The  latter  represents  a  Divine  guidance  imparted  to  in- 
dividuals in  communicating  to  others  truths  which  God  has  revealed  to 
the  mediums  of  Divine  communication.  God,  for  example,  revealed 
certain  forms  of  truth  to  Moses.  This  was  Divine  revelation.  God  theuj 
by  his  own  Spirit,  guided  Moses  in  communicating  that  truth  to  the 
people.  This  was  inspiration.  Revelation  may  pertain  to  truths  pre- 
viously known,  or  to  such  as  have  not  before  been  apprehended.  Truths 
of  the  former  class,  when  divinely  represented  to  the  mind,  or  communi- 
cated to  the  world  by  inspiration,  possess  a  sacredness  and  impressiveness 
which  did  not  previously  attach  to  them.  The  Ten  Commandments,  for 
example,  contain  few  forms  of  duty  of  which  the  race  was  previously 
-wholly  iguoiantb     They  now,  however,  possess  a  distinctness,  sacredness^ 


378  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

and  impressiveness  which  could  not  otherwise  belong  to  them.  Eevela- 
tion  also  presents  to  human  apprehension  truths  which  lie  wholly  beyond 
the  reach  of  human  thought. 

Revelation,  as  it  comes  from  God,  must  present  to  the  mind  pure  truth 
and  nothing  else.  To  suppose  the  opposite  vfould  imply  that  God  inten- 
tionally deceives  His  creatures.  No  one  who  has  any  respect  for  his 
Creator  will  impute  to  Him  any  such  monstrous  deceptions  as  this. 

Divine  inspiration,  in  all  forms  which  bind  the  faith  and  obedience 
of  those  who  receive  its  communications,  must  present  the  exclusive  and 
pure  truth  previously  revealed.  The  opposite  idea  implies  the  same  kind 
of  intentional  deception  on  the  part  of  God  that  deceptive  revelations 
would.  It  is  undeniable  that  God  may  so  guide  men  whom  He  inspires 
to  communicate  His  revealed  truth  that  they  shall  present  that  truth  in  its 
purity  and  nothing  else ;  or  He  may  so  influence  their  minds  that  in  the 
same  communications  they  shall  intermingle  and  confound  God's  revela- 
tions with  their  own  imaginings.  The  dogma  that  God,  whenever  He  has 
inspired  individuals  to  communicate  His  own  truth,  has  chosen  the  latter 
in  preference  to  the  former  method,  when  both  were  equally  practicable, 
is,  to  say  the  least,  a  great  absurdity. 

But  which  of  these  is,  in  fact,  the  inspired  method  revealed  in  the  Scrip- 
tures? On  this  subject  we  have  the  most  clear  and  positive  information 
in  both  the  Old  and  the  New  Testament.  In  Exod.  xx.  21,  the  people 
request  that  God  would  thereafter  communicate  with  them,  not  directly, 
but  through  Moses.  *  Speak  thou  with  us,  and  we  will  hear,  but  let  not 
God  speak  with  us,  lest  we  die.'  In  Dent,  xviii.  15-19,  we  have  a  refer- 
ence to  the  same  subject,  with  a  distinct  revelation  of  the  real  relations 
of  all  future  inspired  Prophets  to  God  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  men  on 
the  other.  For  the  sake  of  distinctness  we  present  the  entire  passage. 
'  The  Lord  thy  God  will  raise  up  unto  thee  a  Prophet  from  the  midst  of 
thee,  of  thy  brethren,  like  unto  me  ;  unto  him  ye  shall  hearken.  Accord- 
ing to  all  that  thou  desirest  of  the  Lord  thy  God  in  Horeb  in  the  day  of 
the  assembly,  saying.  Let  me  not  hear  again  the  voice  of  the  Lord  my 
God,  neither  let  me  see  this  great  fire  any  more,  that  I  die  not.  And  the 
Lord  said  unto  me,  They  have  well  spoken  that  which  they  have  spoken. 
I  will  raise  them  up  a  Prophet  from  among  their  brethren,  like  unto  thee, 
and  will  put  My  words  in  his  mouth  ;  and  he  shall  speak  unto  them  all 
that  I  shall  command  him.  And  it  shall  come  to  pass,  that  whosoever 
will  not  hearken  unto  My  words  which  he  shall  speak  in  My  name,  I  will 
require  it  of  him.' 

This  passage  undeniably  refers  to  every  inspired  Prophet  that  God  has 
since  raised  up,  and  not  exclusively  to  Christ,  as  some  have  supposed. 
Nor  does  Peter  (Acts  iii.  22-25)  cite  the  passage  as  having  an  exclusive  re- 
ference to  Christ,  but  to  Him  as,  among  others,  a  Prophet.     Peter  also 


RE  VELA  TION  AND  INSPIRA  TION.  ^^9 

applies  the  passage  to  other  Prophets  in  the  same  sense  as  to  Christ.  The 
Apostle  reminds  the  people  of  their  obligation  to  receive  the  words  of 
Christ  as  if  directly  addressed  to  them  by  God  Himself,  for  the  reason 
that  Christ  was  to  them  a  divinely  attested  Prophet, '  a  Prophet  raised  up 
from  the  midst  of  them,'  according  to  Divine  promise.  His  words  also 
being  confirmed  by  the  voice  of  all  the  Prophets  from  Samuel  onward. 

In  the  passage  from  Exodus  now  under  consideration,  God  Himself 
distinctly  reveals  the  following  truths.  1.  From  that  time  onward  He 
would  uniformly  make  revelations  to  men,  not  directly,  but  through  Pro- 
phets whom  He  should  'raise  up  from  among  the  people.'  2.  To  these 
Prophets  He  would  first  make  His  revelations  of  truth.  *  I  will  put  My 
words  in  his  mouth.'  3.  God  would  so  guide  the  utterances  of  His  Pro- 
phets that  they  should  communicate  just  what  He  had  communicated  to 
them.  *  He  shall  speak  unto  them  all  that  I  shall  command  him.'  Here 
God  promises  that  inspired  truth,  as  communicated  by  the  Prophets,  shall 
be  identical  in  all  respects  with  revealed  truth,  as  communicated  by  Him 
to  the  Prophets.  4.  The  utterances  of  the  Prophets,  when  given  forth 
'  in  the  name  of  God,'  shall  bind  our  faith  and  obedience  in  the  same 
sense  and  manner  that  they  would  if  directly  uttered  by  God  Himself. 
*  And  it  shall  come  to  pass  that  whosoever  will  not  hearken  unto  My 
words  which  he  shall  speak  in  My  name,  I  will  require  it  of  him.'  The 
great  truth  manifestly  set  before  us  in  this  whole  passage  is  this  :  God  is 
in  the  same  sense  responsible  for  the  truth  of  all  utterances  of  divinely 
attested  Prophets,  utterances  given  forth  by  them  *  in  His  name,'  as  He 
would  be,  were  these  utterances  directly  addressed  to  us  by  God  Himself; 
and  these  utterances  as  absolutely  bind  our  faith  and  obedieuce  in  the 
one  case  as  they  would  in  the  other. 

The  same  great  truth  is  repeated  in  the  commission  which  Jeremiah  re- 
ceived as  a  divine  Prophet,  '  Thou  shalt  be  as  My  mouth.'  Now,  all  the 
Prophets  of  the  Old  Testament  do  stand  before  us,  as  divinely  attested 
Prophets  of  God,  and  all  their  communications  do  come  to  us  *  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord.'  We  must,  therefore,  brand  them  as  *  lying  Prophets,' 
or  accept  their  utterances  as  to  us  '  the  voice  of  God.' 

In  the  same  light  did  Christ  and  His  Apostles  regard  the  utterances  of 
these  Prophets.  It  was  no  part  of  His  mission,  as  He  Himself  informs  us, 
to  annul  any  of  the  teachings  of  the  Old  Testament,  but  to  confirm  them 
all.  '  What  is  written,'  He  presents  as  having  absolute  authority  over 
even  Himself  in  His  relations  as  a  man.  The  Scriptures,  He  tells  us, 
'cannot  be  broken,'  but  '  must  be  fulfilled,'  '  He  became  obedient  unto 
death,  even  the  death  of  the  cross,'  for  this  reason,  that  otherwise  '  the 
Scriptures  could  not  be  fulfilled.'  •  And  He  said  to  them.  These  are  the 
words  which  I  spoke  to  you,  while  I  was  yet  with  you,  that  all  things 
must  be  fulfilled  which  were  written  in  the  law  of  Moses,  and  in  the  Pro* 


38o  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

phets,  and  in  the  psalms,  concerning  me.  Then  he  opened  their  under- 
standing,  that  they  might  understand  the  Scriptures,  and  said  to  them, 
Thus  it  is  written,  and  thus  it  behoves  Christ  to  suflfer,  and  to  rise  from 
the  dead  the  third  day.'  Where  is  the  mustness  about  fulfilling  all  that 
is  written  in  the  law  of  Moses,  and  in  the  prophets,  and  in  the  psalms, 
'  concerning  Him,'  if  these  writings  are  not  of  Divine  authority  ?  Christ 
did  not,  or  these  writings  do,  speak  the  words  of  God.' 

To  the  same  effect  are  the  express  teachings  of  the  Apostles.  *God,' 
we  are  told  (Hebrews  i.  1) 'spake  unto  our  fathers  by  the  Prophets.' 
Another  Apostle  affirms  (2  Peter  i.  16-21)  that  none  of  the  utterances 
found  in  these  writings  were  of  human  origin.  This  is  the  obvious 
meaning  of  the  words  '  private  interpretation.'  That  which  is  written, 
we  are  told,  is  not  what  men  thought  out,  and  willed  to  write,  but  what 
God  thought,  and  willed  to  have  written.  '  What  is  written,'  he  affirms, 
has  even  higher  authority  than  a  mere  report  of  what  is  seen,  and  heard 
'  from  God  out  of  heaven.'  Let  us  read  the  whole  passage.  *  For  we 
have  not  followed  cunningly  devised  fables,  when  we  made  known  unto 
you  the  power  and  coming  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  but  were  eye-wit- 
nesses of  His  majesty.  For  He  received  from  God  the  Father  honour 
and  glory,  when  there  came  such  a  voice  to  Him  from  the  excellent  glory, 
"  This  is  My  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased."  And  this  voice 
which  came  from  heaven  we  heard,  when  we  were  with  Him  in  the  holy 
mount.  We  have  also  a  more  sure  word  of  prophecy ;  whereunto  ye  do 
well  that  ye  take  heed,  as  unto  a  light  that  shineth  in  a  dark  place,  until 
the  day  dawn,  and  the  daystar  arise  in  your  hearts  :  knowing  this  first, 
that  no  prophecy  of  the  Scripture  is  of  any  private  interpretation.  For 
the  prophecy  came  not  in  old  time  by  the  will  of  man  :  but  holy  men  of 
God  spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost.'  Nothing  can  be 
more  plain  than  is  the  fact,  that  according  to  apostolic  teaching,  the 
thoughts  which  the  Prophets  uttered  were  not  their  own,  but  God's,  and 
that  the  words  through  which  those  thoughts  are  expressed,  are  the  words 
of  God. 

But  did  the  Apostles,  in  this  authoritative  form,  occupy  the  position  of 
Prophets  1  They  did,  we  answer,  and  that  in  the  most  important  form 
ever  occupied  before.  To  this  our  Saviour  refers  (Luke  vii.  28),  *  For  I 
say  unto  you,  Among  those  that  are  born  of  women  there  is  not  a  greater 
Prophet  than  John  the  Baptist:  but  he  that  is  least  in  the  kingdom  of  God  is 
greater  than  he.'  The  term  *  greater '  evidently  refers,  not  to  mental 
powers,  but  to  position.  So  after  the  term  '  least '  that  of  Prophet  is  to 
be  understood,  the  laws  of  language  requiring  this.  The  meaning  of  the 
whole  verse  may  be  thus  expressed :  '  Among  those  that  are  born  of 
women,'  no  Prophet  of  the  past  has  ever  yet  occupied  a  position  of  greater 
dignity  and  importance  than  John  the  Baptist  occupied ;  nevertheless,  he 


RE  VELA  TION  AND  INSPIRA  TION.  381 

that  shall  discharge  the  office  of  a  Prophet  in  the  lowest  form  in  the  New 
Dispensation,  will  occupy  a  sphere  of  greater  dignity  and  importance  than 
that  occupied  by  John.  The  manifest  object  of  the  Saviour  was  to  im- 
press the  Apostles  with  a  consciousness  of  the  dignity,  importance,  and 
responsibility  of  the  prophetic  office  to  which  they  were  about  to  be  in- 
troduced. In  this  passage,  these  Apostles,  with  Paul  afterwards  divinely 
jassociated  with  them,  stand  before  us  as  divinely  designated  Prophets  of 
God,  Prophets  in  higher  and  more  responsible  relations  than  any  Prophets 
had  ever  before  been  in.  If  the  utterances  of  Prophets  of  the  Old. 
were,  much  more  must  those  of  the  New  Dispensation  be  to  us,  *  the 
voice  of  God,'  and  must,  in  the  most  absolute  form,  bind  our  faith  and 
obedience. 

On  this  matter  we  have  also  the  most  specific  and  absolute  instruction 
from  Christ  himself.  The  following  (Matt.  xvi.  19)  is  the  authority  ex- 
pressly conferred  upon  Peter,  as  an  inspired  revelator  of  Divine  truth: 
•And  I  will  give  unto  thee  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven:  and 
•whatsoever  thou  shalt  bind  on  earth  shall  be  bound  in  heaven  :  and 
whatsoever  thou  shalt  loose  on  earth  shall  be  loosed  in  heaven.'  The 
same  absolute  authority,  as  teachers  of  truth  and  duty,  is,  afterwards,  as 
expressly  conferred  upon  all  the  Apostles  (Matt,  xviii.  18).  'Verily  I  say 
unto  you.  Whatsoever  ye  shall  bind  on  earth  shall  be  bound  in  heaven  : 
and  whatsoever  ye  shall  loose  shajl  be  looseii  in  heaven.'  The  words 
'bind  and  loose  '  represent  authority  in  the  realm  of  inspired  truth  in  its 
most  absolute  forms.  The  same  absolute  authority  is  reconferred  upon  all 
these  Apostles  in  the  following  words  (John  xx.  23)  :  *  Whosesoever  sins 
ye  remit,  they  are  remitted  unto  them  ;  and  whosesoever  sins  ye  retain, 
they  are  retained.'  The  sense  in  which  the  Apostles  did  'remit  and  retain 
sins '  was  declarative,  that  is,  they,  as  '  teachers  sent  from  God,'  declared, 
or  revealed,  the  conditions  on  which  men  should  receive,  or  fail  to  receive, 
the  pardon  of  sin.  Nothing  can  be  more  evident  than  is  the  fact,  that 
Moses  and  the  Prophets,  Christ  and  the  Apostles,  stand  revealed  in  the 
Scriptures  as  divinely  attested  Prophets  of  God,  Prophets  who  '  speak  by 
authority,'  the  authority  of  God,  and  whose  words  and  writings  are  to  us, 
-when  understood,  God's  laws  of  faith  and  conduct 


SECTION  Vt 

NEEDFUL  EXPLANATIONS. 

If  the  doctrine  of  inspiration,  as  we  have  explained  it,  is  true,  it  follows 
as  a  necessary  consequence  that  when  we  have  ascertained  the  real  mean- 
ing of  any  passage  of  the  sacred  writings,  we  have  found  a  divinely 
attested  truth  of  God.     Here  we  have  the  sense  in  which  these  writings 


383  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

differ  from  all  others.  When  we  have  ascertained  the  real  meaning  of 
■writ'ngs  of  mere  human  origin,  another  question  then  arises — to  wit,  Are 
the  author's  teachings  in  accordance  with  truth  1  When,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  have  ascertained  the  true  meaning  of  any  passage  of  Scripture, 
that  meaning  binds  our  faith  and  conduct.  We  make  God  a  liar  when 
we  question  the  truth  of  '  what  is  written.'  To  teach  that  the  Scrii)tures 
were  given  by  inspiration  of  God,  and  yet  to  affirm  that  their  ascerr 
tainsd  meaning  is  not  of  absolute  authority,  is  equivalent  to  the 
absurdity,  that  the  Scriptures  were,  and  were  not,'  given  by  inspiration  ot 
God.' 

Here  also  lies  the  real  distinction  between  the  believer  and  the 
infidel.  The  former  does,  and  the  latter  does  not,  regard  himself  as 
bound  in  matters  of  faith  and  conduct  by  the  ascertained  meaning  of 
the  Scriptures.  If  an  individual  denies  the  proper  inspiration,  and  with 
it  the  absolute  Divine  authority  of  the  Scriptures,  he  is  bound  by  the 
immutable  laws  of  integrity  to  avow  himself  an  infidel.  This  is  the 
meaning  of  the  term  infidel,  according  to  our  standard  lexicography.  He 
■who  denies  the  proper  inspiration  and  Divine  authority  of  the  Scriptures, 
and  yet  calls  himself  a  Christian,  not  only  *  denies  the  faith,'  but  is 
'  worse  than  an  infidel,'  that  is,  an  infidel  who  admits  himself  to  be  such. 
We  should  be  misunderstood  here  without  a  few  words  of  special  ex- 
planation. 

Special  Explanations. 

1.  When  the  Scriptures  affirm,  as  a  mere  historic  fact,  that  certain  in- 
dividuals did,  on  certain  occasions,  perform  certain  acts,  inspiration  is 
responsible  for  the  real  occurrence  of  the  facts  stated,  and  not  at  all' for 
their  moral  character,  unless  such  characteristics  are  revealed  as  approved 
or  disapproved.  It  accords  with  revealed  truth,  that  good  men  may, 
under  temptation,  do  wrong,  and  even  perpetrate  crimes.  The  recorded 
acts  of  such  men,  when  stated  as  mere  historic  facts,  are  to  be  judged  as 
the  doings  of  other  individuals  are. 

2.  The  same  principle  applies  to  the  recorded  utterances  of  indi- 
viduals. If  such  utterances  are  given  as  the  real  sayings  of  inspired 
Prophets  or  Apostles,  inspiration  is  responsible  both  for  the  fact  and  the 
truth  of  such  utterances.  If  the  speaker,  on  the  other  hand,  is  not 
affirmed  to  have  been,  at  the  time,  under  the  guidance  of  the  Spirit  of 
God,  inspiration  is  responsible  merely  for  the  fact  stated.  The  sayings 
of  Job,  and  of  his  three  friends,  for  example,  are  not  recorded  as  inspired 
utterances,  but  as  having  been  actually  given  forth  by  them  on  the  occa- 
sion designated.  Inspiration,  therefore,  is  responsible  for  the  correctness  of 
the  record,  and  not  for  the  truth  of  what  was  uttered.  This  principle 
holds  true  in  respect  to  all  similar  utterances  recorded  iu  Scripture.     The 


NEEDFUL  EXPLANATIONS.  383 

f jct,  that  the  sayings  of  an  individual  are  recorded  merely  as  his  sayings, 
id  no  proof  at  all,  that  such  uttarances  are  of  inspired  authority. 

3.  To  understand  still  more  fully  the  bearings  of  the  doctrine  of  inspira- 
tion upon  the  writings  of  the  New  Testament,  we  must  also  keep  in  mind 
the  two  distinct  and  separate  relations  which  the  Apostles  sustained  to 
what  they  uttered  and  wrote,  as  vitntsses  of  facts  of  which  they  had  a 
personal  knowledge,  and  as  inspired  prophets.  In  the  latter  relation  they 
speak  with  all  authority,  'binding  aud  loosing,' '  remitting  and  retaining,' 
as  the  spirit  of  inspiration  dictated.  In  the  former  relation  they  could 
speak  nothing  but  what  they  had  *  seen  and  heard,'  and  as  they  '  had 
seen  and  heard.'  Amid  the  melting  and  overwhelming  agitations  of  their 
minds  during  the  evening  of  '  the  Lord's  Supper,'  for  example,  it  would 
not  be  strange  at  all  if,  when  Christ  said  directly  to  Peter,  *  Before  the 
cock  shall  crow  twice,  thou  shalt  deny  Me  thrice,'  if  the  word  'twice' 
was  heard  and  remembered  only  by  Peter.  When  Matthew  and  John  wrote 
as  witnesses,  and  Luke  as  he  received  the  facts  from  ear  witnesses,  they 
could  state  no  more  than  was  actually  heard  by  themselves.  Nor  would 
the  Spirit  bring  to  remembrance  anything  but  what  they  did  hear  and  as 
they  heard.  ^Mark,  on  the  other  hand,  who  wrote  under  the  direction  of 
Peter,  would  give  all  that  our  Saviour  did  say.  There  is  no  discrepancy 
here  any  more  than  between  any  whole  and  its  parts.  In  regard  to  the 
particular  hours  of  the  day,  when  the  different  scenes  of  the  trial  and 
erncifixion  occurred,  each  would  have  his  general  impressions,  some  of  them 
more,  and  some  less  specific,  and  none  of  them  accurate  as  to  the  moment. 
Hence,  when  one  t^Us  us  that  *  it  was  the  preparation  of  the  passover, 
and  about  the  sixth  hour,  and  others  give  more  specific  and  detailed 
statements  in  regard  to  the  times  when  particular  scenes  occurred,  there 
is  not,  when  the  subject  is  rightly  viewed,  even  the  appearance  of  con- 
tradiction. The  Spirit  of  inspiration  directed  each  writer  to  give,  as  a 
witness,  his  own  impressions  in  respect  to  time  and  other  circumstances, 
just  as  they  existed  in  his  mind.  On  no  other  conditions  could  the 
Apostles  be  to  us  witnesses  of  what  they  '  saw  and  heard.'  Almost  all  the 
difficulties  encountered  in  reconciling,  with  one  another,  the  different 
statements  of  the  Evangelists  disappear  at  once  when  the  distinction 
under  consideration  is  kept  in  mind,  while  their  credibility  as  witnesses 
is  theicby  absolutely  verified. 

4.  A  full  and  complete  understanding  of  this  great  subject  requires,  wo 
remark  finally,  a  clear  discrimination  between  '  the  gift  of  the  Spirit,'  as 
promised  to  all  believers  and  as  confined  to  the  Prophetic,  under  the  Old, 
and  to  the  Apostolic  office  under  the  New  Dispensation.  *  The  promise 
of  the  Spirit'  pertains  to  all  believers  in  common,  and  as  an  illuminating 
and  sanctifying  power  He  is  present  in  all  who  embrace  the  promise  by 
faith.     As  a  miracle- woikiug  power,  He  was,  even  in  Apostolic  timet-, 


?84  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


given  to  but  few.  Uuder  the  Old  Dispensation  none  but  divinely 
attested  prophets  had  any  authority  at  all  in  matters  of  faith  and 
practice.  Under  the  l!J"ew  Dispensation,  while  we  have  positive  proof, 
as  has  been  shown,  that  absolute  authority,  as  revelators  of  truth  and 
duty,  was  conferred  upon  the  Apostles,  we  have  no  evidence  whatever 
that  such  authority  was  conferred  upon  any  but  thera.  This  fact  was, 
from  the  first,  clearly  understood  in  the  Primitive  Church.  JSTo  writings 
but  the  ascertained  Apostolic,  that  is,  such  as  were  composed  by  Apostles, 
or  under  their  dictation,  were  regarded  as  of  Divine  authority. 

The  distinction  between  '  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit '  conferred  upon  the 
Apostles  and  all  other  believers,  are  specifically  designated  in  the  Ifew 
Testament.  This  whole  subject  is  at  full  length  clearly  set  before  us  in 
the  twelfth  chapter  of  First  Corinthians.  "We  cite  verses  28-30.  After 
being  informed  that  '  there  are  diversities  of  gifts,  but  the  same  Spirit,' 
and  'difl"erences  of  administrations,  but  the  same  Lord,'  we  have  the 
following  fundamental  statement  in  the  verses  referred  to.  '  And  God 
hath  set  some  in  the  Church,  first  apostles,  secondarily  prophets,  thirdly 
teachers,  after  that  miracles,  then  gifts  of  healings,  helps,  governments, 
diversities  of  tongues.  Are  all  apostles  1  are  all  prophets?  are  all 
teachers  ?  are  all  workers  of  miracles  ?  have  all  the  gifts  of  healing  ?  do 
all  speak  with  tongues  1  do  all  interpret  ?'  The  term  prophet  has  a  dif- 
ferent meaning  under  the  New,  from  what  it  had  under  the  Old  Dispen- 
sation. Under  the  latter,  it  designated  a  class  of  persons  divinely 
attested  as  mediums  of  authoritative  divine  communication.  Under 
the  former,  it  designates  a  class  who  speak  in  the  churches,  not  by 
authority,  but  under  special  Divine  influence,  and  who  consequently 
'  speak  unto  men  to  edification,  and  exhortation,  and  comfort.'  The 
Apostles  alone  spake  by  authority.  They,  consequently,  received  the  gift 
of  inspiration  proper,  a  gift  differing  from  all  others  conferred  by  the 
Spirit,  just  as  the  '  gift  of  healing  '  diftered  from  that  of  *  speaking  with 
tongues.'  It  is  hardly  possible  to  announce  a  more  dangerous  error  than 
that  which  is  involved  in  confounding  the  gift  of  inspiration  proper  with 
the  ordinary  gifts  promised  to  all  believers  in  common,  and  representing 
the  latter  as  differing,  not  in  kind,  but  merely  in  degree,  from  tho 
former. 

This  is  the  insinuating,  but  utterly  subverting,  form  of  error  which  is 
being  urged  upon  the  churches  at  the  present  time.  In  one  or  two  articles 
recently  published  in  that  leading  religious  quarterly.  The  New  Englander, 
articles  containing  a  translation  and  abridgment  of  'Eothe  on  Revelation 
and  Inspiration,'  we  have  the  following : — 'We  must  conclude,'  says  this 
author,  '  from  these  data  that  the  possession  of  the  Sj^irit  is  not,  accord- 
ing to  the  New  Testament  doctrine,  confined  to  the  Apostles,  but  extends 
to  all  true  believers,  without  any  specific  differeirco.'     Again, '  It  is  an  idea 


NEEDFUL  EXPLANATIONS.  385 

foreign  to  the  New  Testament  writings  that  the  Apostles,  in  the  composi- 
tion of  their  writings,  were  under  the  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  a 
way  specifically  different  from  His  usual  indwelling  in  them.'  Granting 
this,  the  deduction  is  absolute,  that  every  believer,  when  '  filled  with  the 
Spirit,'  as  promised  to  all  Christians  in  common,  does  in  fact  and  form 
hold  in  his  hands  *  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,'  and  has  all 
power  to  *  bind  and  loose,'  *  remit  and  retain,'  the  same  identical  authority 
in  kind  and  degree,  the  same  authority  which  Christ  confeired  upon  His 
Apostles.  We  must  conclude,  also,  that  all  that  we  are  told  in  the  New 
Testament  about  '  the  diversity  of  gifts,'  the  diverse  kinds  of  gifts  con- 
ferred upon  the  Apostles  in  distinction  from  others,  a  diversity  which 
rendered  the  former,  in  distinction  from  the  latter,  Apostles,  is  essential 
error.     Who  are  these  men  who  are  thus  'wise  above  what  is  written '1 


SECTION  vn. 

OBJECTIONS  ^ANSWERED. 

Three,  and  only  three,  hypotheses  present  themselves  in  regard  to  the 
inspiration  of  the  Scriptures — that  of  Infidelity,  which  affirms,  that  they 
neither  contain  a  revelation  from  God,  nor  *  were  given  by  inspiration  of 
God ' — the  Semi-Infidel,  which  affirms  that  Christianity  itself  was  given 
by  revelation,  of  which  we  have  a  human  and  fallible  record  in  the  Scrip- 
tures— and  the  Christian  proper,  which  affirms  that  the  Scriptures  are  an 
inspired  record  of  an  actual  revelation,  a  record  for  the  verity  of  which 
God  holds  Himself  responsible.  The  infidel  hypothesis  is  discussed  in 
another  connection.  Our  present  concern  is  with  the  two  last  designated. 
We  make  no  appeal  to  prejudice  when  we  employ  the  term  Semi-Infidel. 
We  employ  the  term  for  the  sake  of  convenience,  and  because  no  other 
term  so  correctly  represents  the  hypothesis  itself.  The  Christian  hypo- 
thesis we  regard  as  already  established.  Against  the  other  it  has  also 
the  highest  probability  in  its  favour.  Christianity  itself,  as  a  revelation 
from  God,  none  will  deny,  presents  nothing  but  pure  truth  unmingled 
with  error.  If  God  had  chosen.  He  could,  as  we  have  shown,  have  given 
to  the  world  a  record  of  this  revelation  just  as  free  from  error  as  the 
original  communication  was.  Did  He  choose,  after  giving  forth  a  revela- 
tion of  pure  truth  to  leave  it  to  men  to  record,  or  not  to  record,  what  was 
revealed  just  as  they  should  choose ;  and  when  they  should  attempt  to  give 
such  record,  to  leave  them  so  to  intermingle  their  own  imaginings  with  His 
own  truth,  that  we  can  have  no  valid  criteria  by  which  we  can  distinguish 
the  former  from  the  latter  t  Did  Christ,  also,  deliver  to  certain  men  'the 
keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,'  with  absolute  authority  to  '  bind  and 
loose,'  *  remit  and  retain,'  and  pledge  His  word  that  what  they  should 

25 


5S6  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

require  and  prohibit,  affirm  and  deny,  should  be  verified  in  heaven — did 
Christ  deliver  all  this  to  men  upon  whom  He  conferred  no  higher  wisdom 
or  authority  than  is  possessed  by  all  believers  in  whom  the  common 
*  promise  of  the  Spirit '  is  fulfilled  1  What  a  senseless  farce  He  acted 
before  the  world  if  this  is  the  case  I 

Let  us  now  turn  our  thoughts  to  the  arguments  adduced  to  sustain  this 
Semi-Infidel  hypothesis.  One  of  the  old  and  standing  objections  is  the 
style  of  these  writings.  Our  citations  will  be  from  the  article  to  whicli 
we  have  referred,  an  article  which  embodies  the  argument  in  favour  of 
this  hypothesis  in  its  fullest  and  strongest  form.  In  regard  to  the  style 
of  the  Bible  our  author  thus  writes  :  *  They  wrote  as  they  spake,  out  of 
their  individual  peculiarities.  The  one  fact,  that  the  later  and  less 
original  ones  made  use  of  the  earlier,  is  enough  to  disprove  the  theory ' — 
that  of  the  proper  inspiration  of  the  Prophets.  *  The  case  is  the  same 
with  the  New  Testament.'  *  Moreover,  these  writers  have  each  his  own 
peculiar  characteristic  style  of  writing,  and  in  the  most  of  them  we  find 
a  certain  awkwardness  in  the  use  of  language,  and  a  ruggedness  and  stifiF- 
ness  of  the  forms  of  speech,  as  is  natural  and  usual  with  writers  who 
have  not  had  much  of  the  training  of  the  schools,  and  are  not  accustomed 
to  express  their  thoughts  in  writing.  These  things  do  not  impair  the 
value  of  the  books  for  the  purposes  intended,  but  how  can  they  be  attri- 
buted to  the  Holy  Spirit]'  '  Would  any  recognise  these  books  as  writings 
in  whose  productiveness  the  authors  are  in  a  passive  condition,  labouring 
mechanically,  mere  slate  pencils?  The  exact  opposite  strikes  every 
reader.' 

Here  we  have,  in  the  first  place,  an  utter  and  inexcusable  misrepre- 
sentation of  the  doctrine  of  inspiration  as  held  by  Evangelical  Christians 
of  all  schools.  Until  we  met  the  misrepresentation  in  this  article,  we 
never  before  heard  of  the  idea  that  inspiration  proper  implies  'the 
mechanical  passivity,'  or  *  the  slate-pencil  state '  of  inspired  men,  when 
speaking  or  writing.  The  mind,  when  under  the  control  of  the  Spirit  of 
Inspiration  so  absolutely  as  to  express  just  what  God  intends  and  dictates, 
and  nothing  more  or  less,  does,  or  may,  in  fact,  act  as  freely  and  naturally 
as  in  any  other  state.  Misrepresentatit>n  is  one  thing ;  refutation  is  quite 
another. 

Let  us  consider  directly  this  argument  deduced  from  such  an  idea  of 
style.  Lord  Bolingbroke,  we  think  it  was,  who  was  very  much  enamoured 
with  the  sublime  in  writing,  presents  this  as  an  unanswerable  argument 
against  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures.  If  God  were  the  author  of 
these  writings,  every  sentence  found  in  them,  he  affirmed,  would  be 
characterized  by  infinite  sublimity.  Our  author  •  has  been  to  school,'  and 
he  consequently  thinks  that  if  these  were  inspired  writings,  their  style 
■would  savour  of  the  University,     This  argument,  we  judge,  is  just  as 


OBJECTIONS  ANSWERED,  387 


conclusive,  and  no  more  so,  in  one  view  as  in  the  other.  Permit  us  to 
ask  this  writer,  and  all  others  who  reason  like  him,  such  questions  as  the 
following  :  Do  you  know,  gentlemen,  what  the  proper  and  exclusive 
Theodic  style  is?  Do  you  know  that  it  is  not  so,  that  when  God 
employs  the  tongues  or  pens  of  individuals,  to  express  to  human  heings 
His  own  thoughts,  such  thoughts  will  not  he  clothed  in  the  words 
common  to  such  individuals  when  not  inspired  ?  Do  you  know  that  if 
God  should,  for  example,  choose  to  communicate  His  own  truth,  and  that 
infallibly,  through  a  child,  as  in  the  case  of  little  Samuel,  that  God'r 
thought  would  not  be  expressed  in  the  language  and  style  of  the  child  ? 
Do  you  know  that  this  is  not  the  real  and  proper  Theodic  style,  the  style 
which  it  is  wisest  and  best  for  God  to  adopt,  whenever  He  makes  indi- 
viduals the  mediums  of  Divine  communication?  Do  you  not,  then,  in 
impugning  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures,  for  such  reasons  as  you  have 
employed  in  this  case,  stand  convicted  of  *  speaking  evil  of  that  which 
you  understand  not  1 

The  above  arguments,  and  all  others  based  upon  the  style  of  the  sacred 
writings,  do  not  present  the  least  form  of  positive,  or  probable,  evidence 
against  the  verbal  inspiration  of  these  writings.  Much  less  do  such 
arguments  have  the  remotest  bearing  against  the  doctrine,  that  the 
Scriptures,  when  rightly  understood,  are  an  infallible,  and  absolutely 
authoritative  rule  of  faith  and  conduct.  While  we  do  not  profess  to 
know,  of  ourselves,  what  kind  of  a  universe  God  should  make,  we  «an 
discern  wisdom  Divine  in  the  universe  He  has  made.  So  of  God's 
higher  creation,  the  Scriptures  of  truth.  While  we  have  no  means  of 
knowing  but  from  the  Bible  what  the  real  Theodic  style  is,  we  can 
perceive  a  Divine  wisdom  in  the  style  which  God  has  adopted.  Among 
such  indications  of  wisdom,  we  refer  to  the  following  : 

1,  Truth  thus  communicated  is  rendered  more  easy  of  apprehension, 
and  is  more  imp'essive  than  it  could  be  by  any  other  method  of  which  we 
can  form  a  conception.  By  this  method,  truth  is  rendered  impressive  not 
merely  by  words,  but  by  or  through  its  actually  illuminating  and  sanctifying 
power  upon  the  heart.  In  other  words,  we  apprehend  the  truth  just  as  it 
lies  in  the  heart,  moves  and  purifies  the  affections,  and  moulds  and  perfects 
the  moral  character.  It  consequently  comes  to  us  with  a  distinctness  of 
apprehension  and  a  melting  and  transforming  power  otherwise  impossible. 
In  the  Scriptures,  we  are  not  only  in  constant  contact  with  Divine  truth, 
but  with  that  truth  as  a  life-imparting  power  in  the  actual  experience  of 
the  soul  of  man.  We  have  no  wish  to  be  possessed  of  that  form  of 
wisdom  which  would  impugn  such  a  method  of  communication  as  this. 
Truth  affects  us  most  deeply  when  it  comes  to  us  warm  from  the  heart  of 
the  iuiJividual  through  whom  it  is  commmiicated,  and  in  language  and 
style  most  natural  to  him. 


3S8  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

2.  The  method  of  inspired  corfltnunication  of  revealed  truth  through 
human  language  renders  the  Bible  capable  of  being  mterprefe.d  by  human 
beings.  If  the  Scriptures  were  written  in  a  superhuman  or  Theodic  style, 
how  could  human  beings  interpret  them  1  For  their  interpretation  we 
should  need  a  Theodic  lexicon  and  commentary,  and  to  understand  these, 
a  lexicon  and  commentary  in  human  language  and  style  would  be  finally 
demanded.  Nor  would  tlie  Scriptures  be  translatable  into  any  language 
under  heaven.  As  it  is,  they  are  subject  to  the  laws  of  interpretation 
common  to  other  writings,  and  can  therefore  be  understood  by  human 
beings ;  and  are  tianslatable  into  all  human  languages,  and  can  consequently 
be  given  to  all  men.  '  Who  hath  known  the  mind  of  the  Lord,  or  being 
His  counsellor,  hath  taught  Him  ?' 

3.  This  method  of  inspiration  also  furnishes  us  with  scientific  criteria 
by  which  we  can  determine  the  eras  in  which  various  portions  of  the 
Scriptures  were  written,  criteria  to  which  a  Tlieodic  superhuman  style 
would  be  inapplicable.  Eationalistic  criticism  has  created  three  great 
maelstroms,  into  which  they  cast  different  portions  of  Scripture,  when  the 
questions  of  their  origin  are  discussed.  The  first  is  represented  by  the 
words,  '  About  the  time  of  Ezra.'  If  we  ask  them  at  what  era  were  the 
writings  of  Moses  produced  and  completed — '  About  the  time  of  Ezra,'  is 
the  reply.  When  was  the  book  of  Job  written  ?  'About  the  time  of 
Ezra.'  AVhen  were  all  the  historic  portions  of  the  Old  Testament  written  1 
'About  the  time  of  Ezra.'  When  were  the  portions  of  Scripture  under 
consideration,  together  with  the  Psalms  and  works  of  Solomon,  compiled? 
*  About  the  time  of  Ezra '  is  the  monotonous  reply.  When,  we  again  ask, 
were  the  leading  prophetic  writings  of  the  Old  Testament  composed  1  At 
a  period  (the  second  maelstrom)  not  long  prior  to  the  Christian  Era,  after 
the  leading  events  designated  had  occurred,  is  the  reply.  But  when  were 
the  several  books  of  the  l^ew  Testament  written?  About  (the  third 
maelstrom)  the  close  of  the  second  or  third  centuries  of  the  Christian 
Era. 

Suppose,  now,  that  the  Scriptures  were  written  in  a  superhuman  or 
Theodic  style.  By  no  possibility  could  we  determine  from  their  language 
sTid  style  the  era  in  which  any  portion  of  the  sacred  books  were  written. 
Now  we  have  criteria  of  the  most  decisive  character.  We  can  say  to  our 
rationalistic  critics  that  the  book  of  Job,  for  example,  could  by  no  possi- 
bility have  been  composed  'About  the  time  of  Ezra.'  The  reason  is 
obvious.  The  language  of  this  book  is  wholly  Hebraistic  of  the  purest 
kind.  The  written  and  spoken  language  of  the  Jews  '  About  the  time  of 
Ezra '  was  not  pure,  but  Chaldaic  Hebrew.  This  book  must  also  have 
been  written  by  a  learned  Hebrew  well  versed  in  facts  pertaining  to  Egypt 
and  Arabia,  and  wholly  ignorant  of  the  Jews  in  Canaan  and  under 
Mosaic  institutions  iand  usages.     On  no  other  hypothesis  can  we  account 


OBJECTIONS  ANSWERED.  Z%() 

for  the  frequent  allusion  to  facts  of  the  former  class,  and  the  total 
absence  of  all  reference  to  those  of  the  latter. 

The  pure  Hebrew  of  Moses,  of  the  historic  portion  of  the  Old  Testament, 
and  of  the  leading  Prophets  prior  to  Daniel,  render  it  certain  that  they 
could,  none  of  them,  have  been  written  *  About  the  time  of  Ezra,'  but  long 
prior  to  that  period ;  and  that  none  of  them  could  consequently  have  been 
written  after  the  predictions  of  these  Prophets  were  fulfilled.  The  Heb- 
raistic Greek  of  the  entire  New  Testament  renders  it  perfectly  evident 
that  none  of  these  books  could  have  been  written  after  the  close  of  the 
Apostolic  Era,  their  peculiarities  of  style  having  no  existence  in  any 
language  subsequent  to  that  period.  There  are  no  more  important  sources 
of  historic  criticism  than  are  found  in  the  hnmanness  of  the  language 
and  style  of  the  sacred  writings. 

4.  The  evidence  of  the  actual  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  is,  we  re- 
mark finally,  rendered  demonstrative  by  the  very  style  which  is  objected 
against.  The  language  and  style  is  human.  The  truths  which  they  re- 
present are  wholly  superhuman.  No  power  but  inspiration  itself  can  by 
any  possibility  embody  such  truth  in  such  human  words  and  style.  In 
the  Scriptures  the  human  and  the  Divine,  the  finite  and  the  infinite,  meet 
and  blend  in  harmonious  unity.  The  idea  of  the  human  origin  of  the 
Scriptures  is,  to  a  mind  which  has  any  adequate  comprehension  of  the 
subject,  as  absurd  as  is  that  of  the  human  origin  of  the  solar  system.  The 
humanity  of  the  style,  in  contrast  with  the  divinity  of  the  truth,  which 
the  former  embodies,  induces  in  every  reflecting  mind  the  immutable  con- 
viction that  here  is  the  handwriting  of  God. 

In  the  midst  of  these  great  revelations,  which  lift  their  heaven- 
illumined  summits  above  and  around  us,  as  we  walk  up  and  down 
among  these  sacred  books,  we  find  no  forms  of  error  of  any  kind  inter- 
mingled with  the  Divine  truths  commended  to  our  faith.  In  all  human 
writings,  which  do  embody  important  forms  of  truth,  we  find  error,  the 
same  in  kind,  intermingled  with  what  is  true.  Not  so  with  the  Scrip- 
tures. Their  doctrines  and  moral  teachings  are  not  only  true,  but  are 
wholly  numarred  with  error.  This  undeniable  fact  places  the  Bible,  with 
its  admittedly  human  language  and  style,  at  an  infinite  remove  from  all 
productions  not  really  and  truly  'given  by  inspiration  of  God.' 

But  while  no  forms  of  error  are  professedly  found  in  the  doctrinal  and 
moral  teachings  of  the  Scriptures,  the  only  material  issue  that  could  be 
raised,  as  an  argument  against  the  proper  inspiration  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment especially,  is  drawn  from  essential  errors  imputed  to  the  writers  of 
the  same,  in  their  Old  Testament  citations  and  references. 

Thus,  the  writer  to  whom  we  have  referred  remarks :  '  The  New  Testa- 
ment writers  often  quoted  the  Old  Testament  from  memory,  and  here  and 
there  with  such  changes  in  wording  as  materially  alter  the  sense.'  .  .  . 


390  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

*  These  writer?,  too,  quote  from  the  Septuagint,  for  the  most  part,  even 
when  it  misrepresents  the  original.'  .  .  .  '  Many  of  the  proof-texts  taken 
from  the  Old  Testament  by  the  writers  of  the  New,  are  not  proof-texts 
at  all.' 

It  may  be  edifying  to  our  readers  to  know  that  the  errors  and  faults 
which  this  writer  and  others  of  his  school  impute  to  the  Apostles,  are  by 
the  same  writers  also  imputed  to  Christ  Himself.     '  Christ,'  we  are  told, 

*  did  in  common  with  the  Jews  treat  the  Old  Testament  revelation  as  of 
Divine  authority.  Undoubtedly,  too,  he  treated  the  letter  of  the  Old 
Testament  as  of  Divine  authority.'  The  New  Testament  writers,  also, 
we  are  further  told,  '  Considered  the  Old  Testament  as  the  immediate 
Word  of  God,  and  our  Lord  left  their  conceptions  undisturbed.'  Unless 
Christ  Himself,  therefore,  can  be  convicted  of  error,  the  Old  Testament 
Scriptures,  in  their  ktter  and  spirit,  are  *the  Word  of  God/  and  of 
absolute  authority.  Such  writers  as  those  under  consideration  do  not 
blink  the  issue  at  all  thus  presented,  but  boldly  impugn  the  Divine 
authority  of  Christ  Himself.  *  They  are  in  error,'  we  are  assured,  *  who 
think  of  the  Saviour  as  having  a  complete  exegetical  knowledge  of  the 
Old  Testament.'  *  The  Saviour  never  professed  to  be  an  infallible  and 
complete  expositor  of  the  Old  Testament.'  We  judge  that  when  our 
Saviour  affirmed  that  He  *  came  not  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil  the  law  and 
the  Prophets,*  and  that  *  not  one  jot  or  tittle  should  pass  from  the  law 
until  all  shall  be  fulfilled,'  that  He  did  possess,  and  did  affirm  Himself  to 
possess,  a  full  knowledge  of  the  subject  matter  to  which  He  referred,  that 
is,  of  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures.  We  believe,  also,  that  attributing 
fallibility  to  Christ  is  an  eclipse  of  faith,  as  complete  as  would  result  to  the 
earth  from  the  total  extinguishment  of  '  the  light  of  the  world.'  The 
only  form  of  evidence  presented  of  His  fallibility  is  His  sacred  respect 
for  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament  as  '  the  Word  of  God.'  We 
judge  that  He  came  forth  from  God  as  well  informed  on  this  subject  as 
the  semi-infidels  of  modern  times. 

We  have,  in  the  article  under  consideration,  multitudinous  references 
to  passages  in  the  New  Testament  to  sustain  the  charge  of  error  on  the 
part  of  its  writers  in  their  citations  from  the  Old  Testament.  No  passages 
but  one  or  two,  however,  are  cited.  Had  the  writer  given  citations  instead 
of  mere  references,  his  own  bald  ignorance  of  the  Scriptures  and  that  of 
his  school  would  have  become  manifest  to  every  reader.  We  have  been  care- 
ful to  search  out  all  these  references,  and  to  compare  each  passage  referred 
to  with  the  known  laws  and  principles  of  Biblical  interpretation.  As  the 
result,  we  feel  quite  safe  in  affirming  that  in  carelessness,  not  to  say  reck- 
lessness, in  the  interpretation  of  Scripture,  this  article,  which,  as  we  have 
said,  embodies  all  that  modern  semi-infidelity  has  developed  on  this 
subject,  can  hardly  be  paralleled.     Not  a  single  passage  referred  to  has, 


OBJECTIONS  ANSWERED. 


when  rigidly  interpreted  in  the  light  of  correct  exegesis,  even  an  apparent 
bearing  in  favour  of  the  author's  position.  Thus  he  affirms  that  *  Paul 
explains  the  same  passage,  Gen.  xiii.  15,  in  two  different  ways, 
Eom.  iv.  16,  and  Gal.  iiL  16.'  In  Gal.  iii  16  Paul  undeniably  refers, 
not  to  Gen.  xiii.  15  at  all,  but  to  Gen.  xxii.  18,  and  he  has  given  the 
true  interpretation  of  the  latter  passage.  When  God  said,  *  In  thy  seed 
shall  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  be  blessed,'  He  unquestionably  must 
have  referred,  as  Paul  says  He  did,  not  to  Abraham's  posterity  in  general, 
but  specifically  to  Christ  What  must  we  think  of  a  Biblical  interpreter 
who  should  affirm  that  Paul,  in  Gal.  iii.  16,  referred  to  Gen.  xiii.  15, 
which  thus  reads,  '  For  all  this  land  which  thou  seest,  to  thee  will  I  give 
it,  and  to  thy  seed  for  ever.'  So  Paul,  in  Rom.  iv.  16,  simply  asserts,  and 
asserts  correctly,  without  reference  to  any  one  particular  passage,  that 
God's  promises  to  Abraham  and  his  seed  were,  in  fact,  conditioned  on 
faith. 

Take  another  example.  '  In  Heb.  x:.  5  an  argument  is  drawn  from  the 
words  of  the  text,  Ps.  xl.  7,  "  A  body  hast  Thou  prepared  me,"  which  are 
a  mistranslation  of  the  original,  and  were  in  all  probability  introduced 
into  the  Septuagint  through  a  blunder  of  the  copyist'  Paul  here  quoted 
a  whole  passage  from  the  Septuagint,  which,  with  the  exception  of  this 
phrase,  accords  with  the  ordinary  Hebrew.  The  Arabic  version  agrees 
with  the  Septuagint.  We  have  then,  as  the  highest  authorities  suggest, 
three  explanations  of  this  difficulty  : 

1.  An  error  in  transcribing  afterwards  crept  into  the  Hebrew,  a  change 
which,  as  Kennicot  shows,  requires  but  a  slight  change  of  the  letters. 
If  we  could  not  otherwise  defend  the  Apostle,  we  should  take  this 
position. 

2.  As  the  Septuagint  and  Arabic  versions  contain  nothing  contrary  to 
the  real  sense  of  the  Hebrew  as  it  now  stands,  and  as  the  slight  dis- 
crepancy did  not  alter  at  all  the  actual  bearing  of  the  whole  passage  upon 
the  Apostle's  argument,  and  as  his  readers  were  acquainted  with  the 
Septuagint  and  not  with  the  Hebrew  text,  the  Apostle  was  fully  justified, 
as  Professor  Stuart  and  other  learned  commentators  have  shown,  in 
making  the  use  he  did  of  the  passage,  and  the  fact  of  such  use  is  no 
argument  against  the  inspiration  of  his  writings. 

3.  There  is,  we  remark  finally,  no  certain  evidence  that  the  words  *  A 
body  Thou  hast  prepared  me,'  are  given  as  a  quotation  from  the  Old 
Testament  at  all,  but  rather  from  Christ  Himself.  By  a  gift  of  the  Father  to 
men,  and  through  the  creative  agency  of  the  Spirit,  '  a  body  was  prepared 
for  Christ,'  and  He  was  given  as  *  the  sacrifice  for  the  sins  of  the  whole 
world.'  To  this  fact  Christ  responds,  *  A  body  hast  Thou  prepared  for 
Me ;'  and  then,  in  the  language  of  prophecy,  yields  Himself  to  the  Father's 
will,  '  Lo,  I  come,*^  etc.     Such  being  the  obvious  facts  of  the  case,  nothing 


392  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHFLOSOPIIY. 

can  be  farther  from  the  truth  than  is  involved  in  a  denial  of  the  proper 
inspiration  of  the  Apostle  on  account  of  the  employment  of  these  words. 

We  give  another  example.  'The  words  quoted,  Heb.  i.  6,  "Let  the 
angels  of  God  worship  Him,"  do  not  occur  in  the  Hebrew  at  all,  but  are 
an  addition  to  the  Alexandrian  version  in  Deut.  xxxii.  43.'  In  reply,  we 
would  remark  that  we  have  no  evidence  whatever,  but  quite  conclusive 
evidence  to  the  contrary,  that  these  words  are  quoted  from  any  version  ol 
the  Old  Testament.  They  are  cited  expressly  as  uttered,  not  when  Christ 
was  given  to  the  world  in  prophecy,  but  when  He  was  '  brought  into  the 
world,'  that  is,  at  His  birth  or  introduction  to  the  world.  Reference  is  un- 
questionably, as  Professor  Stuart  has  shown,  made  not  to  Deut.  xxxii.  43, 
or  to  Ps.  xcvii.  7,  but  to  facts  stated  in  Luke  ii.  8.  Here  we  have  the 
fact  recorded  that  the  angelic  host  did  pay  homage  to  Christ.  Paul, 
under  inspired  wisdom,  informs  us  that  this  was  done  in  accordance  with 
a  special  command  of  God  given  at  the  time.  If  Paul  employed,  to 
represent  this  command,  words  found  in  the  Old  Testament,  he  did  not 
employ  them  as  having  had  an  original  reference  to  Christ. 

We  have  given  above  the  very  strongest  passages  ever  cited  to  sustain 
this  semi-infidel  impeachment  of  the  inspiration  of  the  New  Testament 
writings.  We  would  here  add,  that  after  all  the  clear  light  that  has  been 
thrown  by  modern  criticism  upon  the  manner  in  which  the  I^ew  Testa- 
ment writers  refer  to  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures,  it  is  an  insult  to 
the  exegetical  knowledge  of  this  century  to  base  upon  such  use  an  argu- 
ment against  the  proper  inspiration  of  the  I^ew  Testament  Scriptures. 
When  we  are  told,  as  another  argument  against  the  inspiration  of  these 
writings,  that  the  writers  do  not  appear  to  have  had  any  idea  of  the  use 
that  should  be  made  of  their  writingSj  a  fact  is  stated  which,  if  admitted, 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  subject.  No  Prophet,  pr  Apostle,  when  he 
spake  or  wrote  '  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,'  and  as  sent  by  Him,  had,  it 
may  be,  any  idea  of  what  use  God,  in  His  Providence,  would  make  of 
his  utterances.  What  has  that  to  do  with  the  question  of  the  inspira- 
tion or  authority  of  what  was  spoken  or  written  ?  With  the  speakers 
and  writers,  as  far  as  their  vision  extended,  the  end  arrived  at  may  have 
been  a  temporary  and  local  one.  With  God  the  ultimate  aim  may  have 
been,  and  was,  '  the  instruction  and  admonition'  of  mankind  in  all  future 
time. 

SECTION  VIIL 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  EAELY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH. 

The  doctrines  of  Matter,  Spirit,  Time,  Space,  the  Soul,  God,  Duty,  Im- 
mortality, and  Eetribution,  either  in  their  positive  or  negative  forms, 
enter,  as  fundamental  elements,  into  all  the  philosophical  systems  which 


TFIR  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  EARLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.    393 

we  have  investigated,  and  must  be  omnipresent  in  all  systems.  Indeed, 
the  scientific  solution  of  these  doctrines,  in  all  the  forms  sug>,'ested,  consti- 
tute the  central  problem  of  Philosophy.  The  problem  of  Philosophy  is, 
being  and  its  laws,  and  the  ultimate  cause,  or  reason  of  the  facts,  and  rela- 
tions of  the  facts,  of  universal  nature.  Each  system  of  Philosophy 
presents  its  systematized  solution  of  this  problem,  in  all  the  forms  indi- 
cated. We  cannot  advance  a  step  in  the  solution  of  this  problem  with- 
out touching  the  solution  which  Eeligion  in  general,  and  Christianity  in 
particular,  present  of  the  same  problem.  As  soon,  for  example,  as  our 
modern  sceptical  scientists  had  perfected  their  classification  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  nature,  and  their  solution  of  the  relations,  or  laws,  of  these 
phenomena,  *  the  physical  value  of  prayer '  became,  as  they  affirm,  '  the 
bone  of  contention'  between  them  and  Christian  studeuts  of  science. 
The  same  holds  true  in  all  cases.  The  doctrine  of  Ultimate  Causation, 
which  Materialism,  on  the  one  hand,  and  Idealism,  in  all  its  forms,  on 
the  other,  present,  directly  and  openly  confronts  the  doctrine  of  a  Personal 
God,  which  Natural  Theology  and  Christian  Theism  reveal  and  affirm. 
Every  system  of  Philosophy  has  its  specific  ontology,  and  its  specific 
deductions  pertaining  to  the  soul,  its  duties  or  non-duties,  and  its  destiny; 
and  these  deductions  either  affirm  or  deny  the  deductions  of  Natural  and 
Christian  Theism  in  respect  to  the  same  subjects.  Christian  Theism, 
when  its  essential  doctrines  are  fully  developed  and  systematized,  does 
neither  more  nor  less  than  this :  it  presents  specific  and  affirmed 
divinely  attested  solutions  of  the  great  problems  pertaining  to  Ultimate 
Causation,  to  Being  and  its  Laws — problems  which  Philosophy,  in  all 
ages,  has  endeavoured  to  solve.  Christian  Theism,  if  true,  is,  when  its 
doctrines  are  thus  developed  and  systematized,  not  merely  a  system  of 
religious  doctrines,  but,  also,  a  Divine  Philosophy  of  Ultimate  Causation, 
and  of  Universal  Being  and  its  Laws. 

In  this  light,  ^Moses  and  the  Prophets,  Christ  and  His  Apostles,  and 
the  primitive  teachers  of  Christianity,  regarded  and  presented  the  subject. 
Everywhere  they  found  themselves  surrounded  with  Systems  of  Philo- 
sophy and  of  Religion.  Everywhere  they  presented,  in  opposition  to 
these  Godless  philosophies  and  irreligious  religions,  a  supernaturally 
attested  Divine  Philosophy  and  Religion,  and  these  as  one  and  the  same 
system.  In  opposition  to  the  doctrine  of  Creation  by  Emanation,  or 
Natural  Law,  for  example,  they  taught,  as  we  have  before  shown,  as  a 
deduction  of  Natural  and  Revealed  Religion,  '  that  the  worlds  were 
made  by  the  Word  of  God.'  In  opposition  to  the  doctrine  of  Evolu- 
tion, the  idea  that  all  visible  animal  life  and  vegetable  forms  of  vitalized 
existence  were  developed  by  Natural  Law  from  diverse  pre-existing 
primordial  forms,  which  were  themselves  the  results  of  '  Spontaneous 
Generation,'  they  affirmed,  '  that  things  which  are  seen  (visible  species) 


394  ^  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

■were  not  made  (developed,  evolved)  out  of  things  which  do  appear,'  that 
is,  from  pre-existing  visible  forms ;  that  God  originally  created  and  con- 
stituted each  species,  so  that  its  oflfspring  should  be  'after  its  kind ;'  that 
'  God  gives  to  each  seed  its  own  body  ' — a  body  like  that  from  which  it 
proceeded.  In  opposition  to  the  solutions  of  the  problems  of  Being  and 
its  Laws,  solutions  presented  by  these  Godless  philosophies,  they  pre- 
sented opposite  solutions,  and  verified  the  same  by  appeals  to  visible  and 
conscious  facts  of  nature,  as  in  the  case  of  Paul  at  Athens,  before  Felix, 
and  in  all  his  Epistles ;  and  to  supernatural  facts  undeniably  real,  as  in 
the  case  of  all  these  teachers.  All  men  understood  that  in  accepting  the 
solutions  of  these  teachers,  they  renounced  those  presented  by  all  the 
Godless  philosophies  and  opposite  religions  around  them.  They  greatly 
err  who  represent  these  men  as  mere  teachers  of  an  unsystematized  re- 
ligion. They  taught,  on  the  other  hand,  a  well-understood  system  of 
doctrines,  and  taught  that  system,  as  not  only  embodying  a  Divine 
Eeligion,  but  also  a  Divine  Philosophy.  We  will  give  a  single  example 
of  the  philosophic  teachings  of  the  doctors  of  the  Primitive  Church. 

An  Example  op  the  Philosophic  Teachings  op  the  Leading 

Doctors  op  the  Pbimitive  Chuuch. 

The  common  doctrine  of  the  then  existing  Godless  Philosophies  was 
that  of  Fate,  or  Necessity.  Against  this  doctrine  these  doctors  specifi- 
cally and  unanimously  protested.  '  Every  one,*  says  Mosheim,  '  knows 
that  tlie  peculiar  doctrines '  (of  which  that  of  Necessity  was  one)  '  to 
which  the  victory  was  assigned  by  the  Synod  (of  Dort),  were  absolutely 
unknown  in  the  first  ages  of  the  Church.'  *  The  Church  teachers '  (of 
the  first  three  centuries),  says  Neander,  *  agreed  unanimously  in  maintain- 
ing the  free  will  of  man  as  a  necessary  condition  of  the  existence  of 
morality.*  *  These  Fathers,'  says  Whitby,  *  unanimously  declare  that 
God  hath  left  it  in  the  power  of  man  to  turn  to  virtue  or  vice.'  In  full 
accordance  with  these  statements,  is  the  testimony  of  Calvin,  and  of  all 
authorities  of  all  schools. 

The  specific  statements  of  these  Fathers  fully  confirm  the  above 
opinions  of  these  high  authorities.  *  If  it  happen  by  fate,'  says  Justyn 
Martyr,  of  the  second  century,  '  that  men  are  either  good  or  wicked,  the 
good  were  not  good,  nor  should  the  wicked  be  wicked.'  Again,  '  Unless 
we  suppose  man  has  the  power  to  choose  the  good  and  refuse  the 
evil,  no  one  can  be  accountable  for  any  action  whatever.'  Again,  '  God 
has  not  made  men  Tike  trees  and  brutes,  without  the  power  of  election.' 
*  Man  can  do  nothing  praiseworthy,  if  he  had  not  the  power  of  turning 
either  way.' 

*  No  rewaidi'  says  TertuUian,   of  the  same  century,  *  can  justly  bo 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  EARLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.     395 

bestowed,  no  punishment  can  justly  be  inflicted,  upm  him  who  is  good 
or  bad  by  necessity,  and  not  by  his  own  choice.'  *  Man,'  he  says  again, 
*beiug  appointed  for  God's  judgment,  it  was  necessary  to  the  justice  of 
God's  sentence  that  man  should  be  judged  according  to  the  desert  of  his 
free  will.' 

Irenajus,  Bishop  of  Lyons,  and  of  the  same  century,  says,  'Man,  a 
reasonable  being,  and  in  that  respect  like  God,  is  made  free  in  his  will, 
and  having  power  over  himself,  is  the  cause  that  sometimes  he  becomes 
wheat,  and  sometimes  chaff.'  In  the  following  statement  we  have,  not 
only  an  avowal,  but  a  most  perfect  presentment  of  the  doctrine  of  Free 
Will.  *  They  who  do  good  shall  obtain  honour  and  glory,  because  they 
have  done  good  when  they  could  forbear  doing  it.  And  they  who  shall 
do  it  not  shall  receive  just  judgment  of  our  God ;  because  they  have  not 
done  good,  when  they  could  have  done  it.' 

*  What  is  forced,'  says  the  learned  Basil,  '  is  not  pleasing  to  God,  but 
what  comes  from  a  truly  virtuous  motive ;  and  virtue  comes  from  the 
Will,  not  from  Necessity.'  'The  Will,'  he  says  again,  'depends  on 
what  is  within  us,  and  within  us  is  free  wDl.' 

'  Forasmuch  as  God  has  put  good  and  evil  in  our  power,*  says  Chrysos- 
tom,  *  He  has  given  us  a  free  power  to  choose  the  one  or  the  other ;  and 
as  He  does  not  retain  us  against  our  will,  so  He  embraces  us  when  we  are 
willing.'  Again,  *  After  a  wicked  man,  if  he  will,  is  changed  into  a  good 
man ;  and  a  good  man,  through  sloth,  falls  away  and  becomes  wicked  ; 
because  God  hath  endowed  us  with  free  agency ;  nor  does  He  make  us  do 
things  necessarily,  but  He  places  proper  remedies  before  us,  and  suffers 
all  to  be  done  according  to  the  will  of  the  patient.' 

'  God,'  says  Jerome,  '  hath  endowed  us  with  free  will.  We  are  not 
necessarily  drawn  either  to  virtue  or  vice.  For  when  necessity  prevails, 
there  is  no  room  left  for  damnation  or  the  crown.  *  Our  will,'  he  says 
again,  *  is  left  free  to  turn  either  way,  that  God  may  dispense  His  rewards 
and  punishments,  not  according  to  His  own  pre-judgment,  but  according 
to  the  merits  of  every  one.'  '  Let  the  man  who  condemns  free  will  be 
himself  condemned.' 

*  The  soul,'  says  Origen,  '  does  not  incline  to  either  part  out  of  Neces- 
sity, for  then  neither  vice  nor  virtue  could  be  ascribed  to  it ;  nor  would 
its  choice  of  virtue  deserve  reward  ;  nor  its  declination  to  vice,  punish- 
ment.' '  How  could  God  require  that  of  man  which  he '  [man]  *  had  not 
power  to  offer  Him  V 

'  Neither  promises  nor  reprehensions,  rewards  or  punishments,  are  just,' 
says  Clement  of  Alexandria, '  if  the  soul  has  not  the  power  of  choosing 
or  abstaining.' 

'The  doctrine  of  Fate  or  Necessity,'  Eusebius  affirms,  'absolves  sinners, 
as  doing  nothing  of  their  own  accord,  which  was  evil ;  and  would  cast  all 


396  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  blame  of  all  wickedness  in  the  world  upon  God,  and  upon  his  pro- 
vidence.' 

Didymus,  of  the  fourth  century,  says  of  the  doctrine  of  Free  Will, 
*  this  is  n»t  only  ours,  but  the  opinion  of  all  who  speak  orthodoxly.' 

Nor  did  even  Augustine  hold  the  doctrine  of  Necessity  in  the  common 
form.  *  They  that  come  to  Christ,'  he  says,  *  ought  not  to  impute  it  to 
themselves,  because  they  came,  being  called ;  and  they  that  would  not 
come,  ought  not  to  impute  it  to  another,  but  only  to  themselves,  because, 
when  they  were  called,  it  was  in  the  power  of  their  free  will  to  come.'  We 
perceive  clearly  that  these  doctors  were  not  merely  Christian  theologians. 
They  were  also  well-informed  Christian  philosophers.  The  Philosophy  and 
Theology  of  the  Church  were  thus  identical,  and  the  latter,  in  all  proper 
forms,  as  the  perfected  system,  determined  the  former. 

As  the  systems  of  Aristotle  and  Plato,  in  opposition  to  those  of  the  Epi- 
cureans, Stoics,  Sceptics,  and  Idealists  such  as  Plotinus,  taught  the 
doctrines  of  Matter,  Spirit,  Time,  Space,  the  Soul,  and  God,  these  Doctors 
accepted  the  systems  first  designated  as,  in  all  essential  particulars,  true, 
and  referred  to  the  teachings  of  such  thinkers  as  Thales,  Anaxagoras, 
Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle,  in  confirmation  of  the  fundamental 
doctrines  of  Christianity.  In  opposition  to  doctrines  of  Materialism  on 
the  one  hand,  and  of  Idealism  on  the  other,  they  affirm  the  real  existence 
of  two  distinct  and  separate  principles.  Matter,  which  they  designated  by 
such  terms  as  corpus  (au/Ma),  and  Mind,  which  they  called  anima,  spirilus, 
mens.  In  opposition  to  the  teachings  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  they  generally 
denied  the  eternal  existence  of  Matter,  at  the  same  time  affirming  that  the 
idea  of  origination  from  nothing  *  contains  a  radically  inevitable  and  insolv- 
able  mystery.'  Against  the  doctrine  of  creation  by  emanation  or  evolution, 
they  urged  such  arguments  as  the  following  :^1.  According  to  this  sys- 
tem all  beings  are  fractions  or  portions  of  God,  and  thus  the  Diviue  unity 
is  broken  up.  2.  Evil  infirmities  and  crimes  attach  to  the  Divine  essence 
as  parts  of  the  same.  3.  The  Divine  essence  must  be  indivisible  and 
incorruptible.  Near  the  close  of  the  fifth  century,  Boethius,  a  learned  and 
Christian  Eoman  senator,  born  470  a.d.,  as  an  ancient  philosopher  on  the 
one  hand,  and  a  Christian  theologian  on  the  other,  developed  in  the  West 
a  system  of  Philosophy  in  professed  conformity  with  both  science  and  the 
Christian  Keligion.  His  works  were  held  in  high  regard  in  subsequent 
centuries.  Near  the  close  of  the  sixth  century,  John  Philaforms  performed 
a  similar  work  for  the  Churches  in  the  East.  Other  great  thinkers  about 
the  same  time,  thinkers  such  as  Bede,  Egbert,  and  John  of  Damascus,  in 
Italy,  Gaul,  Spain,  England,  and  the  East,  'sent  out  rays  of  light  upon 
the  poor  pale  schools  that  glimmer  remotely  through  the  shades  of  bar- 
barism,' As  long,  however,  as  the  identity  between  science  and  the  real 
doctrines  of  Christianity  was  maintained,  and  the  latter,  in  the  proper 


ANTI-  CHRISTIAN  SPECULA  TIOA'S.  397 

form,  determined  the  former,  Christianity  maintained  its  ascendency  as  an 
all- conquering  power.  When,  on  the  other  hand,  false  science  gave  form 
to  Christian  doctrine,  then  the  Sun  of  Righteousness  went  into  a  deep 
eclipse,  and  the  midnight  of  the  Dark  Ages  gradually  overspread 
Chxisteudom. 

SECTIOI^  IX. 

ANTI-CHEISTIAN  SPECULATIONS. 

During  the  first  centuries  of  the  Christian  Era  there  arose,  particularly  at 
Alexandria  in  Egypt,  certain  schools  in  Philosophy,  whose  systems  were 
utterly  subversive  of  Christianity,  but  were  presented  to  the  world  as  per- 
fected systems  of  Christian  doctrine.  These  schools  were  divided  into  two 
general  classes — Oriental,  in  which  an  attempt  was  made  to  blend 
Christianity  with  the  systems  of  India  and  Egypt ;  and  the  Gra^co-Oriental, 
represented  by  the  Alexandrian  Electicism.  These  systems  deserve  our 
attention  merely  as  furnishing  the  ground  for  an  explanation  of  the  origin 
and  character  of  certain  doctrines  and  usages  which  obtained  in  the  early 
centuries  of  the  Christian  era,  and  marred  the  purity  of  Christian  doctrine. 
We  shall  refer  to  these  systems  in  the  order  above  indicated. 

Oriental  Doctrines. 
These  doctrines  are  represented  by  j#i6  General  term  Gnosticism,  and 
present  nothing  but  the  Pantheism  of  India  and  Egypt,  with  Christianity 
blended  as  a  common  ingredient  with  said  system.  For  the  Brahm  of 
India,  and  Pinoris  of  Egypt,  the  Gnostics  (self-styled  knowing  ones)  sub- 
stituted the  Abyss,  who  is  the  ground  and  substance  of  all  being. 
Creation  is  wliolly  by  emanation,  and  consists  of  emissions  and  mani- 
festations of  -what  is  contained  in  the  bosom  and  substance  of  the  Abyss. 
The  first  emanations,  proceeding  as  they  do  directly  and  immediately  from 
the  Abyss,  are  the  most  perfect,  and  constitute  a  universe  of  superior 
beings,  the  Plaroma,  and  are  called  Eons.  The  last  of  these  emanations  is 
the  Demiurgus,  a  being  constituted  of  light  and  ignorance,  force  and 
feebleness.  From  this  imperfect  being  emanates  the  visible  universe, 
material  and  mental,  a  universe  in  which  consequently  good  and  evil  are 
intermingled,  the  latter  greatly  prevailing.  Christ  is  the  last  and  most 
perfect  emanation  from  the  Abyss,  and  as  the  leading  Eon,  His  mission  is 
to  destroy  the  works  of  the  Demiurgus.  The  source  of  all  evil  is  the 
hylic  or  material  principle,  of  which  matter  U16  is  the  substancet  Re- 
demption consists  in  the  emancipation  of  the  soul  from  the  hylic  prin- 
ciple and  rising  to  the  jpjieumatic,  or  spiritual,  state.  The  Jews  worship 
the  Demiurgus,  or  Jehovah,  and  were  consequently  psychical ;  the  Pagans 
were    subjected  to    the    inferior   world,    and  were  hylic ;   while  true 


393  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Christians  are  pneumatic  All  who  remain  under  the  hylic  principle  will 
be  annihilated ;  those  who  seek  union  with  the  Demiurgus  will  have  a 
semi-happy  existence  with  him,  while  the  pneumatic  will  return  to  the 
bosom  of  the  Abyss. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  third  century,  Manes,  bom  in  Persia,  de- 
veloped a  system  known  as  Manichseism,  a  system  in  which  Persian 
Dualism  is  combined  with  the  doctrines  of  Christianity.  According  to 
Manes  there  are  two  principles  from  which  all  things  proceed — the  one  a 
most  pure  and  subtle  matter,  denominated  light — the  other  a  gross  and 
corrupt  substance,  called  darkness.  Each  of  these  is  presided  over  by  a 
being  who  existed  from  eternity.  The  being  who  presides  over  light  is 
called  God,  and  is  supremely  good  and  happy.  He  who  rules  over  dark- 
ness is  called  Hyle,  or  Demon,  and  is  evil  and  unhappy.  Each  of  these 
beings  originally  produced  an  immense  number  of  creatures  resembling 
themselves,  and  distributed  them  through  their  respective  provinces. 

For  a  long  period  the  Prince  of  Darkness  remained  ignorant  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Light.  When,  by  means  of  a  war  in  his  own  dominions, 
he  became  aware  of  a  universe  of  pure  and  happy  beings,  he  arrayed  all 
his  forces  against  them,  and  succeeded  in  seizing  a  large  portion  of  the 
celestial  elements  of  light,  and  intermingled  them  with  masses  of  corrupt 
matter.  The  pure  particles  of  the  celestial  matter,  the  Euler  of  Light 
was  not  able  wholly  to  rescue  from  the  power  of  the  Prince  of  Darkness. 
From  the  elements  thus  retained  under  his  control,  the  Prince  of  Dark- 
ness created  the  human  race,  who  were  constituted  of  bodies  organized  out 
of  corrupt  matter  and  of  souls  possessed  of  a  sensitive  and  lustful  nature, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  of  a  rational  and  immortal  nature  on  the  other, 
the  latter  being  constituted  of  particles  of  the  Divine  light  which  he  had 
carried  away.  God  now  created  the  earth  as  the  abode  of  the  human 
race.  His  object  being  the  ultimate  deliverance  of  the  captive  souls  from 
their  corporeal  prisons,  and  to  extract  the  celestial  elements  from  the  gross 
substance  in  which  they  were  involved.  To  accomplish  the  work  of 
human  redemption,  God  produced  from  His  own  substance  two  beings  of 
a  Divine  dignity — Christ  and  the  Holy  Ghost  In  the  progress  of  ages, 
Christ  appeared  among  men  as  dwelling  in  a  human  body,  taught  them 
how  to  disengage  the  rational  soul  from  the  corrupt  and  the  violent 
passions  engendered  by  malignant  matter,  demonstrated  the  divinity  of 
His  mission  by  stupendous  miracles,  and  was  at  last  put  to  death  by  the 
Jews  on  an  ignominious  cross.  All  this  was  in  appearance  only,  since 
spirit  cannot  be  really  united  with  matter  without  being  corrupted  by  it. 

Before  leaving  the  earth,  Christ  promised  His  disciples  to  send  them 
the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Paraclete,  or  Comforter,  who  should  perfect  for 
believers  the  revelation  of  truth.  This  Comforter  is  Manes,  who  reveals 
to  mortals  all  truth  needful  to  their  final  salvation,  which  consists  in 


ANTI- CHRISTIAN  SPECULA TIONS.  399 

total  piiriQcation  from  the  contagion  of  matter.  By  renouncing  the  God 
of  the  Jews,  who  is  the  Prince  of  Darkness,  by  carefully  obeying  the 
laws  revealed  by  Christ,  and  enlarged  and  illustrated  by  the  Comforter, 
a  purification  will  be  partially  effected  in  this  life,  and  perfected  in  the 
next. 

Souls,  on  the  other  hand,  who  neglect  this  work  of  self-purification 
pass  after  death  through  many  and  painful  transmigrations  until  they 
have  fully  expiated  their  guilt.  In  the  final  consummation  the  universe 
will  be  purified  by  fire,  after  which  the  Prince  of  Darkness,  with  his  own 
creatures,  will  be  for  ever  excluded  from  the  Kingdom  of  Light.  To 
perpetuate  the  influence  of  his  own  teachings,  Manes  arbitrarily  rejected 
all  those  portions  of  the  sacred  writings  which  were  supposed  to  conflict 
with  his  own  system. 

The  rules  of  life  prescribed  by  Manes  were  most  rigorous,  requiring  the 
mortification  and  maceration  of  the  body  as  intrinsically  corrupt  and 
vicious,  and  a  total  denial  and  mortification  of  all  the  natural  passions 
and  instincts.  His  disciples  were  divided  into  two  classes — the  eled,  and 
hearers.  The  former  were  required  to  abstain  totally  from  flesh,  milk, 
eggs,  wine,  and  wedlock,  and  to  partake  of  mere  vegetables  and  bread 
Bufi&cient  to  keep  alive  their  emaciated  bodies.  The  hearers  were  allowed, 
under  severe  restrictions,  to  possess  houses  and  lands,  to  eat  flesh,  and 
enter  into  wedlock.  Throughout  Egypt  and  surrounding  countries  vast 
multitudes  embraced  the  Gnostic  and  Manichaean  doctrines.  Hence, 
deserts  and  mountain  solitudes  were  peopled  with  vast  swarms  of 
devotees,  who  fled  from  the  habitations  of  men  to  escape  the  deadly 
contagion  of  the  flesh. 

The  Gr^co-Oriental  Philosopht. 

In  our  exposition  of  the  Grecian  Evolution  in  Philosophy,  we  liave 
superseded  the  necessity  of  enlarging  upon  the  subject  stated  above, 
Near  the  close  of  the  second  century,  Animonius  Saccas,  an  apostate 
from  the  Christian  faith,  opened  in  Alexandria  an  Eclectic  school,  in 
which  he  professedly  blended  into  one  harmonized  system  the  essential 
elements  of  the  Oriental,  Grecian,  and  Christian  doctrines.  The  teachings 
of  this  philosopher  were  enlarged,  and  more  completely  systematized,  by 
such  thinkers  as  Plotinus,  Porphyry,  and  Proclus.  In  accordance  with 
the  teachings  of  Oriental  and  Grecian  Pantheism,  they  taught  the 
existence  of  one  absolute  unity  as  the  principle  and  substance  of  all 
things,  and  of  the  universe  as  an  emanation  from  this  unity,  all  sensible 
objects  beings  the  images  and  external  representations  of  intellectual 
objects,  or  of  ideas,  which  alone  are  real.  With  the  doctrine  of  emana- 
tion they  connected  a  certain  form  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  of  u 


400  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Mediator,  and  other  forms  of  Christian  truth,  all  moulded  and  transformed 
80  as  to  harmonize  with  the  essentials  of  Pantheism.  The  common  attempt 
of  all  schools  to  harmonize  Christian  doctrine  with  their  systems  clearly 
evinces  the  fact  that  a  conviction  of  the  truth  of  that  doctrine  had 
become  the  common  faith  of  the  Eoman  Empire. 


SECTION"  IX. 

CHRISTIAN   DOCTRINE    AS    CORRUPTED    BY   'SCIENCE    FALSELY 

SO-CALLED.' 

While  the  Doctors  of  the  Christian  Church,  during  all  the  centuries  we 
are  now  considering,  openly  rejected  and  opposed  the  systems  of  the 
Gnostics,  Manichseans,  Alexandrian  Eclectics,  and  other  Anti-Theistic 
schools,  there  were  certain  principles  maintained  by  these  schools  which 
were  received  by  many  of  these  Fathers,  and  thus  corrupted  Christian 
doctrine.  The  idea  that  matter,  as  a  real  or  ideal  substance,  is  the  source 
and  cause  of  human  sin  and  misery,  and  that  salvation  is  conditioned, 
not  on  a  full  regulation  of  the  propensities,  but  upon  an  extinction  of 
natural  desires,  constitutes,  as  we  have  seen,  the  common  element  of 
almost  all  the  systems  of  false  science  in  all  ages.  The  validity  of  this 
idea,  in  its  essential  forms,  had  an  early  place  in  the  teachings  of  leading 
fathers  of  the  Christian  Church,  and  gave  rise  to  the  Monastic  institu- 
tions, usages,  and  doctrines  of  subsequent  ages.  During  the  progress  of 
the  second  century,  the  moral  teachings  of  the  New  Testament  were 
divided  into  two  classes — precepts  and  counsels.  The  former  were  abso- 
lutely binding  upon  all,  and  those  who  obeyed  them  fully  were  morally 
perfect.  The  latter  were  advisory,  and  not  absolutely  binding  upon  any. 
All  who  fully  conformed  to  the  precepts,  and  added  thereto  conformity 
to  counsels,  were  not  only  morally  perfect,  but  did  more  than  their  duty, 
and  thereby  attained  to  angelic  perfection.  Of  this  class  were  such  as, 
from  religious  motives,  voluntarily  abstained  from  wedlock,  denied  them- 
selves all  luxuries,  and  practised  the  greatest  austerities.  Such  teachers 
as  Chrj'sostom  and  Athanasius  affirmed  that  such  individuals  became 
possessed  of  forms  of  virtue  which  '  are  above  law.'  Speaking  of  this 
class,  Athanasius  says,  that  'the  Son  of  God  hath,  besides  His  other 
gifts,  granted  unto  us  to  have  npon  earth  the  image  of  the  sanctity  of 
angels.'  Here  we  have  the  germ  of  the  doctrine  of  Supererogation,  on 
yrbioh  was  based  that  of  Indulgences. 


BOOK  III. 

THE  MEDIEVAL  EVOLUTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY. 

The  period  from  the  sixth  to  the  ninth  century  constitutes  the  era  of 
transition  from  the  ancient  and  early  Christian  to  what  is  denominated 
the  Mediaeval  Evolution  in  Philosophy,  and  would,  were  it  our  object  to 
j)resent  a  mere  history  of  opinions,  constitute  a  distinct  chapter.  As  the 
change  was  very  gradual  from  the  Patristic  to  the  Mediaeval  period,  little 
need  be  added,  however,  to  what  we  have  indicated  in  respect  to  this 
transition  period.  The  leading  thinkers  of  this  period  we  have  already 
designated.  Of  the  specific  forms  of  their  teachings,  we  know  but  little,  the 
fact  excepted,  that  with  them,  science  and  religion  were  one  and  identical, 
or  more  correctly  perhaps,  that  science  is  the  handmaid  (ancilla)  of  religion. 
In  Arabia  there  arose  in  connection  with  the  rise  of  Mohammedanism 
systems  which  took  form  from  Mohammedan  and  Christian  doctrines  on  the 
one  hand,  and  from  Oriental  dogmas  on  the  other.  The  common  doctrine 
of  all  these  systems  was  that  of  absolute  fate  as  taught  by  Mahomet. 
At  the  beginning  these  systems  were  purely  Idealistic  and  Pantheistic  ; 
then  Materialistic ;  and  finallj*,  of  course,  Sceptical,  in  fact  and  form.  In 
the  Secret  Societies  of  Syria  and  Egypt,  these  were  the  most  essential  of 
the  dogmas  taught  to  the  Initiated — to  wit,  '  There  is  no  other  God  but 
Material  Nature ;  no  other  religion  but  pleasure  ;  and  no  other  right  than, 
that  of  the  strongest.'  Scepticism  took  on  two  forms — a  denial  of  all 
valid  knowled>,'e  but  through  the  Koran  ;  and  a  denial  of  the  possibility 
of  real  knowledge  in  any  form. 

The  Eisb  of  Scholasticism. 
After  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries,  when  the  Papacy  was  fully  estab- 
lished, the  authority  of  the  Church  became  supreme  in  Eeligion,  in 
Politics,  and  also  in  Philosophy  ;  and  Education  in  all  its  forms  came 
under  her  direct  and  exclusive  control.  In  science  within  certain  limits 
liberty  of  thought  and  free  discussion  were  fully  tolerated,  but  not  in 
contravention  of  any  of  the  positive  dogmas  of  the  Church  in  any  sphere 
of   research   whatever.     Philosophy   became   nominally    Christian,    and 

26 


402  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PIIILOSOniY. 

assumed  the  general  name  of  Scholasticism.  "We  are  not  to  suppose  that 
this  term  represents  a  doctrine  which  always  retained  one  and  the  same 
form.  In  its  germ  it  existed  in  preceding  ages,  but  at  a  much  later 
period  took  on  its  final  form.  "We  propose  to  consider  this  evolution  in 
these  two  forma. 

Scholasticism  in  Us  Primal  Form. 
The  Scholastic  doctrine,  in  its  primal  form,  was  first  distinctly  announced 
hy  Anselm,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  who  was  bom  1033.  Christians, 
he  affirmed,  should  advance  to  science  through  faith,  and  not  to  faith 
through  science.  Tiiis  dogma,  he  announced  through  the  following 
formula  :  *  Credo  ut  intelligam,'  *  I  believe  that  I  may  know.*  According 
to  the  early  Fathers,  science  and  Christian  doctrine  were  to  be  developed 
side  by  side,  each  on  independent  grounds,  and  each  in  harmony  with  the 
other.  It  was  an  early  doctrine  of  these  Fathers,  that  when  any  deduc- 
tion arrived  at  in  the  scientific  procedure  contradicted  any  clearly  ascer- 
tained truth  of  Inspiration,  that  deduction  should  be  assumed  to  be  false, 
and  that  the  ground  of  the  error  should  be  searched  out.  They  also  held 
that  the  highest  degree  of  certitude,  that  is,  knowledge  in  its  most  absolute 
forms,  in  respect  to  the  great  problems  of  Philosoph\%  problems  pertain- 
ing to  Being  and  its  laws,  to  Ultimate  Causation,  to  God,  the  Soul,  and 
Immortality,  is  not  obtained  through  Philosophy  unaided  by  revelation, 
but  through  revelation  with  Philosophy  as  the  handmaid,  and  not  the  autho- 
ritative guide, of  religion.  'The  world,  by  wisdom'  (Philosophy),  they  wore 
taught  and  believed,  *  had  not  known  God,'  and  had  not  found  truth  ; 
while  the  humblest  believer  had  found  both.  Inspiration  had  affirmed  u 
fact  of  the  truth  of  which  they  were  absolutely  conscious — to  wit,  '  That 
no  man  can  know  the  things  of  a  man,  save  the  spirit  of  man  which  is  in 
him.'  In  other  words,  man  can  know  himself  but  through  internal  facts 
of  which  he  is  himself  conscious.  Hence,  it  becomes  a  truth  of  absolute 
intuition  and  science,  as  well  as  of  inspiration, '  that  no  man  knoweth  the 
things  of  God,  but  the  Spirit  of  God,'  and  that  we  only  do,  or  can,  truly 
hww  God,  but  through  Divine  revelation  and  illumination.  In  this 
sense,  these  Fathers  did,  and  most  rationally  too,  hold  the  doctrine, 
'Credo  ut  intelligam.'  By  this  they  did  not  understand  that  prior  to 
faith  in  inspiration  nothing  is,  or  can  be,  known.  Through  conscious 
facts  the  soul  has  some  knowledge  of  itself;  through  'the  things  that  are 
made,'  *  the  invisible  things  of  God '  (his  essential  attributes)  '  are 
clearly  seen  ;'  and  through  supernatural  attestations,  Christianity  is  known 
to  us  as  a  Divine  religion.  All  this  must  precede  faith  in  this  religion. 
When  thus  enlightened,  however,  we  must  now  believe,  or  never  attain 
to  a  consciously  assured  knowledge  of  even  those  forms  of  truth  to  which 
science  aims  to  conduct  us.     If  we  turn  away  from  this  higher  light,  the 


THE  MEDIyEVAL  EVOLUTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY.  403 

light  that  was  before  within  us  becomes  darkness,  and  in  our  self-affirmed 
wisdom,  we  'become  fools.'  Such,  undeniably,  is  the  doctrine  of  the 
Bible ;  such  was  the  belief  of  these  Fathers ;  and  such  is  the  truth  as 
verified  by  the  history  of  philosophic  thought  from  the  beginning  to  the 
present  hour.  Let  us  consider  a  few  facts  in  verification  of  these  state- 
ments. 

This  Doctrine  Verified. 

Outside  of  the  sphere  of  Theistic  and  Christian  thought,  and  antagonistic 
to  the  same,  there  have  been  numberless  schools  in  Philosophy,  schools  in 
all  of  which  the  ultimate  problems  of  Being  and  its  laws,  and  of  final 
causation,  have  been  professedly  solved  and  absolute  truth  found.  The 
leaders  of  these  schools,  not  the  world,  have  glorified  themselves  by 
manufacturing  and  exclusively  appropriating  to  themselves  as  the  self- 
inaugurated  intellectual  autocrats  of  the  race  such  cognomens  as  Yogee, 
Buddha,  Magi,  Philosopher,  Savan,  Sophist,  Gnostic,  lUuminati,  Scientist, 
Physicist,  and  Ists  in  such  numbers  as  to  exhaust  the  vocabulary  of  self- 
glorification.  Not  one  of  these  terms,  it  should  be  borne  in  mind,  was 
manufactured  by  the  world,  and  conferred  upon  these  men  as  a  mark  of 
world-respect.  All,  and  for  purposes  of  self-glorification,  were  self- 
manufactured,  and  self-appropriated.  The  common  meaning  of  all  these 
self-appropriated  terms,  it  should  also  be  remembered,  is.  Lover  of 
Wisdom,  the  Wise  Man,  the  Knowing  One.  Nor  is  this  all  These  men 
have,  for  the  most  part,  claimed  for  themselves  faculties  of  knowledge  and 
powers  of  insight  of  which  the  rest  of  mankind  are  wholly  destitute. 
What  have  they  done  to  vindicate  for  themselves  their  high  and  self- 
appropriated  claims  ?  To  such  inquiries  adequate  answers  have  already 
been  given,  and  will  be  given  in  future  expositions.  Nothing  need  be 
added  upon  the  subject  in  this  connection. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  real  meaning  of  the  doctrine,  that  faith  must 
precede,  not  knowledge,  but  science.  Faith,  as  defined  in  the  Bible, 
and  understood  by  the  Fathers  of  the  Church,  is  fixed  fidelity  of  will  to 
valid  evidence,  or  rational  conviction.  Unbelief,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
specifically  set  forth  as  infidelity  of  will  to  such  evidence  and  con/viction. 
•This  is  the  condemnation,  that  light  is  come  into  the  world,  and  men 
loved  darkness  rather  than  light,  because  their  deeds  were  evil'  Christ 
affirms,  that  the  men  of  His  age,  who  rejected  or  disbelieved  in  Him, 
would  have  been  guiltless,  had  he  not  'done  among  them  the  works 
which  no  other  man  had  done,'  that  is,  demonstrated  before  theiu 
the  divinity  of  His  mission.  The  heathen  are  affirmed  to  bo  without 
excuse,  because  *  they  hold  the  truth  in  unrighteousness,'  that  is,  know 
the  truth,  but  do  not  obey  it,  and  because  they  '  know  God,'  and  '  do  not 
glorify  Him  as  God.'  Voluntary  infi'lelity  to  rational  conviction  is  un- 
belief as  defined  in  Scripture,  and  as  understood  by  these  Fathers. 

26—2 


404  A   CRITICAL  niSTORY  Ul<  FHJLViiOJ'Il Y. 

Faith,  on  the  other  hand,  is  defined  as  '  the  substance  of  things  lioped 
for,  the  evidence  of  things  not  seen,'  that  is,  in  respect,  to  'things  hoped 
for,'  the  object  of  faith  is  'substance,'  that  which  is  real  and  true; 
and  as  far  as  it  pertains  to  things  unseen,  it  has  for  its  basis  '  evidence,' 
A'alid  proof,  or  rational  conviction.  Faith,  then,  as  defined  in  Scripture, 
is  fidelity  of  will  to  valid  evidence  or  proof,  that  is  to  rational  con- 
viction. 

Now  nothing  can  be  more  evident  than  is  the  fact  that  every  peculiar 
deduction  to  be  met  with  in  the  systems  of  Idealism,  Materialism, 
and  Scepticism,  is  utterly  void  of  intuitive,  or  deductive  validity,  and 
can  have  no  place  in  the  human  mind  as  rational  conviction  ;  but  takes 
exclusive  form  there  as  a  mere  assumption  that  stands  in  open  an- 
tagonism to  the  intuitive  convictions  of  the  Universal  Intelligence.  This 
fact  has  already  been  fully  verified.  Such  deductions,  therefore,  have 
place  in  the  mind  as  the  exclusive  result  of  infidelity  of  will  to  '  evidence,' 
or  rational  conviction. 

Faith  in  its  relations  to  science  is  absolute  fidelity  of  will  to  valid 
evidence,  or  to  the  real  dicta  of  the  Intelligence,  that  is,  to  rational  con- 
Tiction.  Whatever  the  Intelligence  in  its  original  and  necessary  intui- 
tive procedures  presents  to  the  mind  as  real,  faith  accepts  as  a  known 
verity  ;  and  whatever  facts,  whether  natural  or  supernatural,  are  verified 
by  the  known  laws  of  valid  evidence,  are  accepted  as  actual  Nothing  is 
assumed  as  real  or  actual  but  what  the  Intelligence,  in  its  consciously  valid 
procedures,  verifies  as  such;  and  all,  and  nothing  else  that  is  thus  verified, 
is  accepted  as  the  exclusive  basis  of  all  deductions  in  science.  The  first 
step  in  science  is,  consequently,  based  upon  the  postulate  that  Matter, 
Spirit,  Time,  and  Space,  are  known  realities,  and  known  as  distinct  and 
separate,  the  one  from  each  of  the  others.  All  these  are  postulated  as 
such  realities,,  because  in  its  original,  necessary,  and  intuitive  procedures, 
the  Universal  Intelligence  presents  them  as  such  verities.  All  the 
axioms  in  all  the  sciences  are  postulated  as  valid  for  truth,  because  to 
the  Universal  Intelligence  they  are  necessarily  true.  All  the  great  facts 
which  enter  as  constituent  elements  into  such  sciences,  together  with  the 
supernatural  events  which  stand  around  the  Christian  religion  and  affirm 
its  Divine  origin,  are  accepted  as  actual,  for  the  reason  that  to  the  Intel- 
ligence th?y  are  verified  as  such  by  valid  evidence.  In  respect  to  '  the 
things  of  God,'  reliance  is  reposed  upon  the  revelations  and  illuminations 
of  the  Spirit  of  God,  because  va  a  validly  verified  revelatiou  from 
God,  all  who  seek  it  have  the  absolute  promise  of  Divine  teaching. 
When  science  moves  upon  the  track  here  indicated,  all  its  procedures 
will,  and  must  be,  within  the  sphere,  and  under  the  illumination,  of  the 
clear  light  of  the  Intelligence,  and  deductions  logically  reached  will  have 
the  fixed   characteristics   of   conscious   certitude.      la  our   systems   of 


THE  MEDIMVAL  EVOLUTION  m  PHILOSOPHY.  405 

Ontology,  Cosmology,  and  Ultimate  Causation,  doubt  will  have  no  placo^ 
because  nothing  but  what  is  to  the  Intelligence  consciously  known 
has  place  there ;  all  forms  of  mere  assumption,  opinion,  belief,  and 
conjecture,  being  excluded.  Nothing  is,  or  can  be,  more  evident  than  ia 
the  fact,  that  faith  as  above  defined  is  the  immutable  condition  and  pro- 
paedeutic of  true  science,  and  rational  certitude  in  all  scientific  procedures. 
These  primitive  Fathers  were  undeniably  right  in  their  doctrine  that  faith 
precedes  science,  and  in  the  maxim,  as  originally  held,  Credo  ut  intelligam. 
Voluntary  integrity  to  the  Intelligence,  or  absolute  faith  in  its  real  dicta, 
is  the  immutable  condition  of  conscious  scientific  certitude. 

Nor  can  there  be  any  departure  from  the  track  of  scientific  deduction 
above  indicated,  but  through  most  palpable  infidelity  of  will  to  the  abso- 
lute dicta  of  the  Intelligence ;  in  other  words,  to  rational  conviction. 
Within  the  proper  sphere  of  the  Intelligence,  there  can  be  no  form  of 
doubt  of  the  reality  of  Spirit,  Matter,  Time,  or  Space,  or  of  either  as  an 
object  of  valid  knowledge.  We  cannot  deny  the  validity  of  our  know- 
ledge of  either  of  these  realities,  but  in  the  language  of  Coleridge,  '  by  an 
act  of  (miscalled)  'scientific  scepticism  to  which  the  mind  voluntarily 
determines  itsolf.*  In  other  words,  all  the  denials  of  Materialism, 
Idealism,  and  Scepticism,  have  their  exclusive  besis,  not  in  data  fur- 
nished by  the  Intelligence,  but  in  mere  assumption,  voluntary  determina- 
tion, a  sentiment  of  will — will  data — which  stand  in  open  antagonism  to 
original,  universal,  and  necessary  intellectual  intuition. 

ScnOLASTIOISM   IN    ITS   FlNAL   FORM, 

*  The  effort  of  Scholasticism,'  says  Schwegler,  '  was  to  mediate  between 
the  dogma  of  religion  and  the  reflecting  self-consciousness ;  to  reconcile 
faith  and  knowledge.'  Scotus  Erigina,  of  the  ninth  century,  in  his 
attempt  to  produce  this  reconciliation  identified  the  two.  'There  are  not 
two  studies,'  he  said,  *  one  of  Philosophy  and  one  of  religion  ;  true  Philo- 
sophy is  true  religion  and  true  religion  is  true  Philosophy.'  This  identity 
can  be  rationally  established  but  by  developing  each  system  upon  its  own 
independent  ground,  rightly  interpreting  the  Word  on  the  one  hand,  ami 
taking  into  account  on  the  other  all  validly  known  facts;  and  finally,  by 
comparison  demonstrating  the  harmony  between  them.  Others,  as  we 
have  seen,  attempted  to  evince  this  harmony,  by  advancing  to  religion 
through  science,  and  determining  from  the  deductions  of  the  latter,  not 
oidy  religious  doctrines,  but  the  meaning  of  the  Word  of  God.  It  was,  in 
fact,  by  this  method  that  Scotus  Erigina  made  the  two  one  and  identical. 
He  was  avowedly  a  Pantheist,  and  developed  not  the  doctrine  of  nature, 
but  the  entire  system  of  Christian  doctrine  from  the  Pantheistic  stand- 
point. God,  he  taught,  is  *  the  substance  of  all  things,'  the  substance  'in 
which  all  things  end,  and  to  which  all  things  finally  return.'    As  multi- 


4o6  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

form  developments  of  the  Divine  unity,  he  gave  us  not  Oriental  Poly- 
theism, but  the  Trinity,  Incarnation,  and  the  whole  system  of  Christian 
doctrine.  The  principle  of  determining  the  Word  of  God  by  the  deduc- 
tions, whether  true  or  false,  of  science,  has  a  place  in  modern  theological 
thought.  Whenever  any  of  our  Scientists  set  forth  some  special 
hypothesis,  however  crude  and  unverified,  not  a  few  of  our  theologians 
hasten  to  prove  that  the  teachings  of  the  Bible  may  be  made  to  affirm 
the  validity  of  that  hypothesis.  Thus  the  same  passage  has  been  ex- 
plained in  harmony  with  an  endless  diversity  of  cooflicting  hypotheses. 
By  such  procedure  the  Bible  is  not  vindicated,  but  exposed  to  public 
contempt. 

Others  have  attempted  to  harmonize  '  faith  and  knowledge,*  by  ad- 
vancing to  Philosophy  through  religion.  Holding  as  we  do,  as  Christians, 
that  nature  and  the  Bible  proceed  from  the  same  Author,  we  must  hold  that 
a  Divine  harmony  does  exist  between  the  real  teachings  of  the  two.  We 
must  hold,  for  example,  that  the  doctrines  of  Cosmology,  Anthropology  and 
Ultimate  Causation,  revealed  in  Scripture,  are  in  absolute  conformity  with 
the  same  doctrines  as  far  as  they  are  revealed  '  by  the  things  which  are 
made.'  Yet  the  teachings  of  the  Bible  and  the  facts  of  nature  are  to  be 
explained  independently  of  each  other. 

The  form  which  Scholasticism  finally  took  on  was,  that  •  the  faith  of 
the  Churches  is  absolute  truth,'  and  that  it  is  exclusively  through  her  dicta 
that  we  are  to  interpret  both  science  and  the  Bible.  Anselni,  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  born,  as  we  have  stated,  in  1033  a.d.,  first  developed 
the  doctrine  in  this  form.     This  was  the  meaning  of  the  famous  maxim, 

*  Credo  ut  intelligam.'  No  discussion,  he  taught,  was  to  be  held  with  men 
who  denied  the  absolute  authority  of  the  Church  both  in  matters  of  faith 
and  of  science.  Discussion  and  examination  were  not  to  be  repudiated,  but 
^.e^e  to  pertain  exclusively  to  an  understanding  and  elucidation  of  what, 
on  the  authority  of  the  Church,  had  been  previously  accepted  as  true. 

*  As  the  right  order,'  he  says,  '  demands  that  we  first  receive  into  our- 
selves believingly  the  mysteries  of  Christianity,  before  subjecting  them  to 
speculative  examination,  so  it  seems  to  me  the  part  of  negligence  if,  after 
liaving  been  confirmed  in  the  faith,  we  do  not  endeavour  to  understand 
what  we  have  believed.'  Scholasticism  in  this  form  became  soon  after 
the  immutable  doctrine  of  the  Papacy,  and  was  enforced  upon  the  people 
by  the  civil  as  well  as  the  ecclesiastical  authorities.  Opposition  to  this 
doctrine,  which  was  at  length  developed  within  the  bosom  of  the  Church, 
laid  the  foundation  for  the  Beformation. 

The  Nominalism  and  Kealism  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
Philosophy,  as  accepted  and  taught  by  the  leaders  of  the  Primitive 
Church,  took  form  chiefly  from  two  sources — the  original  teachings  of 


THE  MEDI^  VAL  E  VOL  UTION  IN  PHIL  OS 0 PHY.  407 

Plato  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  Aristotle  on  the  other.  Hence  it  was  tlmt 
during  the  entire  Scholastic  era  a  fierce  antagonism  existed  between 
Realism  as  derived  from  the  former,  and  Nominalism  as  received  from  the 
latter.  The  Realists  held  that  ideas  as  universals,  species  and  genera, 
have  a  real  existence,  and  that  the  universal  exists  prior  to  the  indiviilual 
(universalia  anterum).  The  Nominalists  on  the  other  hand,  maintained 
that  the  individual  alone  has  real  being,  and  that  universals  are  mere 
names  {flatus  vocis),  without  content  and  without  reality.  In  favour  of 
each  of  these  hypotheses,  the  highest  talent  the  world  then  knew,  and  we 
should  very  little  fearthe  truth  if  we  should  add,  as  high  as  any  since  known, 
was  arrayed.  It  was  universally  assumed  that  one  of  these  hypotheses  was 
right  and  the  other  wrong,  none  suspecting  that  both  were  in  error.  As 
each  party  had  an  erroneous  position  to  assault,  on  the  one  hand,  and  to 
defend  on  the  other,  each  was  omnipotent  in  its  assaults,  and  the  perfec- 
tion of  weakness  in  self-defence.  If  the  universal,  the  term  man,  for 
example,  is  a  mere  word,  representing  no  valid  idea  in,  and  no  reality  out 
of  the  mind,  then  the  proposition,  'John  is  a  man,'  is  void  of  meaning. 
It  does  have  real  meaning  however.  The  dogma  of  Nominalism,  there- 
fore, cannot  be  trua  To  this  argument  the  Nominalist  could  make  no 
reply.  If  the  universal,  man,  for  example,  does  represent  an  idea  within 
and  a  reality  without  the  mind,  a  reality  distinct  from  the  individual, 
then,  as  before,  replies  the  Nominalist,  the  proposition,  'John  is  a  man  ' 
is  untrue  or  void  of  meaning,  the  proposition  being  equivalent  to  the 
aflBrmation  that  the  individual  and  the  universal,  which  are  distinct  from 
each  other,  are  one  and  identical ;  nor  would  there  be  any  difference  be- 
tween individuals.  To  this  argument  that  truly  great  thinker.  Duns 
Scotus,  who  died  in  1308,  made  this  reply:  'The  individual  and  the 
universal,  though  distinct  from  each  other,  are  always  united  in  the  same 
person.  Individuals  differ,  not  as  containing  the  universal,  but  through 
the  distinct  qualities  which  constitute  their  individuality.  The  individ- 
uality of  Peter,  for  example,  consists,  not  in  his  humanity,  but  in  his 
Peterity,  or  Peterness.  Hence,  Peter  is  both  an  individual  and  a  man. 
John  is  a  man  and  an  individual  also,  but  not  Peter,  because  in  the 
former  not  Peterness,  but  Johnity,  is  added  to  humanity.'  To  this  argu- 
ment Nominalists  gave  a  reply  which  has  never  been  answered :  if 
the  universal,  as  all  admit,  man,  for  example,  is  one  and  not  many, 
how  can  humanity  be  at  the  same  time  present  in  John  at  Ephesus, 
and  in  Peter  at  Rome  or  Babylon?  Thus  each  school  utterly  de- 
molished the  hypothesis  of  the  other,  and  that  because  both  were  in 
error.  In  like  manner.  Materialism  and  Idealism,  because  both  systems 
are  false,  have  each  omnipotent  power  in  assaulting  the  position  of  its 
antagonist,  and  is  utterly  powerless  when  assaulted  in  return.  When 
Scepticism  also  has  annihilated  the  claims  of  both  systems  it,  in  turn, 


4o8  /I  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

falls  dead  under  the  crushing  blows  of  Eealism.  How  often  is  it  the 
case  that  when  two  fundamental  errors  stand  opposed  to  each  other, 
even  thinkers  assume  that  one  of  these  errors  must  be  true.  A  more 
tlangerous  mistake  can  hardly  be  made.  The  fact  that  Materialism  and 
Idealism  are  incompatible  and  antagonistic  systems,  and  that  Scepticism 
is  opposed  to  both,  does  not  imply  that  either  is  true.  Notwithstanding 
this  deadly  antagonism  all  these  systems  maybe  constituted  of  nothing  but 
fatal  error.  "Whenever  two  or  more  false  and  conllicting  theories  con- 
Iront  each  other,  there  is  always  another  hypothesis  which  includes  all 
that  is  true,  and  excludes  all  that  is  false  in  each  of  these  forms  of  error, 
ua  hypothesis  consequently  which  must  be  true.  Idealism,  for  example, 
affirms  that  we  have  a  valid  knowledge  of  spirit  and  its  operations,  but 
denies  that  we  do  or  can  have  any  such  knowledge  of  Matter  and  its 
qualities.  Materialism  affirms  that  we  do  have  a  valid  knowledge  of 
Matter,  but  denies  that  we  do  or  can  have  any  such  knowledge  of  Spirit. 
Scepticism  affirms  that  we  do  have  a  valid  knowledge  of  Phenomena,  but 
denies  that  we  do  or  can  have  any  knowledge  of  Substance,  or  real  being 
in  any  form,  of  realities  such  as  Matter,  Spirit,  Time,  and  Space.  Eealism 
admits  all  that  each  of  these  theories  affirms,  and  affirms  all  that  they 
deny.  They  consequently  are  '  science  falsely  so-called,'  while  it  embraces 
*  the  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth.' 

The  above  elucidations  have  a  direct  application  to  Realism,  Nomin- 
alism, and  to  a  third  hypothesis  unknown  to  the  ancients,  namely,  Con- 
ceptualism.  All  these  hypotheses  admit  and  affirm  that  universally  the 
term  man,  for  example,  is  applicable  to  each  individual  of  the  class  which 
comes  under  such  term,  and  hence  that  Socrates,  Peter,  John,  etc.,  were 
each  of  them  really  and  truly  a  man.  The  Eealistaffirmed  that  the  term  man 
represents  a  form  of  being  which  existed  prior  to  all  individuals  of  the 
race.  Nominalists  denied  the  existence  of  such  anterior  form  of  being, 
affirmed  that  nothing  is  real  but  particular  or  individual  existence,  and 
that  general  or  universal  terms  are  mere  names,  which  represent  no  ideas 
in  the  mind,  and  no  realities  exterior  to  it.  In  their  points  of  agreement 
that  John  is  a  man,  for  example,  both  are  right  In  tlieir  contradictions 
of  each  other,  both  rested  upon  fundamental  error.  All  general  terms  do, 
as  all  men  know,  represent  ideas  in  the  mind  and  qualities  exterior  to  it, 
but  not  the  forms  of  being  which  the  Realists  affirmed.  The  term  man, 
for  example,  represents  the  qualities  common  to  all  men,  which  did 
nut  exist  prior  to  individuals  of  the  race  on  the  one  hand,  and  a  concep- 
tion of  those  qualities  in  the  mind  on  the  other.  In  view  of  their  in- 
dividual peculiarities,  we  say,  Peter  is  not  John,  and  in  view  of  their 
common  qualities,  we  call  each  a  man.  Thus  we  have  the  hypothesis  of 
Conceptionalism,  which  has  now  supplanted  both  of  the  ancient  theories. 
The  term  Realism,  as  now  employed,  stands  opposed,  not  to  Nominalism, 
but  to  Materialism,  Idealism,  and  Scepticism. 


THE  MEDIMVAL  EVOLUllON  IN  PHILOSOPHY.  409 

The  Mysticism  op  the  Middle  Ages. 

Ever  since  the  second  century  of  the  Christian  Era,  a  class  of  professed 
believers  have  existed  in  the  Church,  who  have  been  denominated 
Mystics,  and  sometimes  Quietists.  They  have  received  this  designation, 
not  exclusively,  or  primarily,  on  account  of  their  doctrines,  but  because 
of  their  peculiar  method  of  afl&rmed  spiritual  insight.  Among  the 
Mystics,  while  their  method  of  insight  was  essentially  one  and  the  same, 
an  endless  diversity  of  form  of  belief  obtained.  What  is  now  required 
of  us  is  a  distinct  exposition  of  this  method,  together  with  an  exposition 
of  the  reasons  of  the  diverse  and  even  contradictory  forms  of  belief  and 
sentiment  evolved  through  one  and  the  same  method. 

To  accomplish  our  object,  we  would  observe  that,  as  is  well  known, 
there  are  two  classes  of  sciences — the  pure,  or  h  'priori,  and  the  mixed,  or 
h,  posteriori  In  the  former  all  principles  and  facts  are  given  exclusively 
through  A  priori  insight,  the  principles,  facts,  and  deductions,  all  in 
common  having  universal  and  neces:?ary,  or  apodictic,  certainty.  In  the 
latter,  while  the  principles  are  given  through  d,  priori,  the  facts  are  all  and 
exclusively  derived  through  d,  posteriori  insight.  There  are,  consequently, 
two  distinct  and  separate  methods  of  scientific  deduction — the  d,  priori, 
which  has  place  only  within  the  exclusive  sphere  of  the  pure,  and  the 
inductive,  or  d,  jwsteriori,  which  has  exclusive  place  within  the  sphere 
of  the  mixed  sciences. 

The  science  of  Ontology,  Cosmology,  Ultimate  Causation,  and  of  all 
problems  pertaining  to  being  and  its  laws,  belong,  as  we  have  demon- 
strably evinced,  to  the  exclusive  sphere  of  the  mixed  sciences.  lu  these 
sciences  all  valid  deductions  must  be  based  upon  facts  of  actual  percep- 
tion, and  upon  facts  implied  by  what  we  perceive.  In  these  sciences 
there  are  but  two  conceivable  methods  of  reasoning,  namely^  the  d> 
yr'iOri  and  the  inductive.  In  accordance  with  the  latter  method,  we 
first  of  all  determine  the  forms  of  valid  perceived  and  implied  knowledge, 
and  then  construct  our  systems  accordingly,  such  systems  being  true 
when  all  forms  of  valid  intuition,  and  none  others,  are  included,  and  the 
validity  of  all  our  deductions  are  necessarily  implied  by  our  valid  principles 
and  real  facts ;  and  our  conclusions  will  be  false,  if  any  real  forms  of 
knowledge  are  excluded,  or  any  not  valid  are  included  as  the  basis  of 
our  deductions. 

In  the  h  priori  method  all  the  elements  of  thought  given  by  perception 
external  and  internal  are  ignored,  and  all  exercise  of  the  faculties  of  Con- 
ception, Judgment,  Association,  and  Imagination  are  suspended,  and  the 
whole  being  is  held  in  waiting -expectation  for  a  direct,  immediate,  ii  priori 
insight,  or  vision  of  being  in  se,  or  of  necessary,  eternal,  and  absolute 
truth.     Philosophers   generally   refer  this  vision  of  the  Absolute  to  * 


410  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  FHILOSOPHY. 

Bpecial  faculty  called  Reason  or  Ecstaoy,  while  others  identify  this  same 
faculty  with  God.  The  Christian  Mystic  refers  such  visions  to  direct 
and  immediate  illumination  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  All  agree  in  this,  that 
these  visions  are  most  full  and  perfect  when  the  perceptive,  and  other 
kindred  faculties  referred  to,  are  the  most  completely  suspended,  and  all 
cognitions  through  them  are  the  most  fully  ignored.  The  methods  by 
wliich  this  common  state  of  non-thought  is  induced  are  various.  The 
Yogee  and  Buddhist  having,  by  an  act  of  will,  suspended  the  exercise  of 
the  other  faculties,  seats  himself  in  an  immovable  position  with  his.  eyes 
steadily  fixed  upon  the  end  of  his  nose,  or  as  fixedly  directed  towards 
the  east,  there  and  then  awaiting  the  vision  of  absolute  truth.  The 
Grecian  and  Transcendental  philosoplvr,  'when  he  begins  to  philosophize' 
without  any  such  mere  physical  acts,  'puts  himself  into  a  state  of  not- 
l<7iowing,'  or,  as  Coleridge  expresses  it,  *  by  an  act  of  scientific  scepticism 
to  which  the  mind  voluntarily  determines  itself,'  he  *  assumes  all  previous 
knowledge  to  be  uncertain,'  and  then  and  there  awaits  the  '  vision  Divine  ' 
of  'the  Absolute.'  Arabian  philosophers  of  about  the  twelfth  century 
recommended  the  following  method  of  inducing  this  state  of  perfect  non- 
thought.  Setting  out  with  the  principle  that  the  senses  and  other  cognate 
faculties  give  us  nothing  but  the  transitory  and  perishable,  they  concluile 
from  hence  that  reason  should  separate  itself  from  all  notions  and  con- 
ceptions, and  even  extinguish  the  imagination.  *  The  philosopher,'  they 
say,  'who  wishes  to  rise  to  the  intuition  of  truth,  should  imitate  the 
circular  motions  of  the  stars,  in  order  to  bring  on  a  giddiness  that  may 
efface  from  the  mind  every  trace — every  recollection  of  the  world  of 
phenomena.  In  this  state  of  isolation  the  intelligence  of  man,  freed 
from  all  material  obstacles,  finds  itself  in  direct  communication  with  God. 
Everything  visible  has  vanished  away;  Being  only — the  Absolute  Being 
— appears  in  his  essence,  and  the  mind  then  comprehends  that  nothing 
exists — that  nothing  can  exist  out  of  that  essence  which  is  the  sole 
reality.' 

Christian  Mystics  had  various  methods  of  'effacing  from  the  mind 
every  trace — every  recollection  of  the  world  of  phenomena.*  Some, 
after  voluntarily  suspending  the  operation  of  the  perceptive,  conceptive, 
reflective,  and  reasoning  faculties,  seated  themselves  upon  the  ground 
■with  their  eyes  turned  not  to  the  east,  nor  fixed  upon  the  ends  of  their 
noses,  but  upon  the  ends  of  their  navels ;  others  stood  upon  the  tops  of 
high  posts  with  their  eyes  closed  or  turned  upwards,  while  others  8till 
shut  themselves  up  in  cloisters,  or  '  wandered  in  deserts  and  in  mountains 
and  in  dens  and  caves  of  the  earth.'  Everyone  must  perceive  that  the 
method  of  the  h  pioii  philosopher  and  Christian  Mystic  is  really  identical, 
and  that  the  object  of  each  is  the  same,  the  vision  of  absolute  truth.  The 
one  expects  this  vision  through  insight  of  reason,  the  other  through 


THE  MEDIEVAL  EVOLUTION  IN  PIIILOSOFHY.  41 1 

Diviue  illumination.  Both  alike,  according  to  all  correct  definition  and 
classification,  are  Mystics — the  one  class  in  the  mixed  sciences,  and  the 
other  in  religion.  The  Christian  Mystic  holds  that  without  the  aid  of 
the  senses,  of  the  reasoning  faculties,  or  even  of  the  Written  Word,  we 
attain,  through  direct  and  immediate  illumination  of  the  Spirit  of  God, 
to  a  knowledge  of  Divine  truth.  The  Mystic  in  Philosophy  expects, 
when  he  has  '  put  himself  into  a  state  of  not-knowing,'  by  whatever 
method  this  state  may  be  induced,  a  direct  and  immediate  vision,  through 
insight  of  reason,  of  absolute  truth.  Mysticism  in  Philosopliy  is  the 
b,  priori  method  of  scientific  induction  and  deduction,  the  method  which 
has  place  but  in  the  pure  sciences,  forced,  as  the  all  authoritative  method, 
into  the  sphere  of  the  inductive  or  h  posteriori  sciences.  Religious 
Mysticism,  we  repeat,  is  the  same  method  of  induction  and  deduction  in 
the  sphere  of  religious  thought 

One  inquiry  of  great  interest  and  importance  here  arises — an  inquiry 
■which  has  been,  in  part,  answered  in  other  connections,  namely,  how  is 
it  that  by  strict  adherence  to  the  same  method,  and  in  the  exclusive  use 
of  the  same  faculty  and  form  of  insight,  there  is  obtained  such  a  multitude 
of  utterly  contradictory  visions  of  affirmed  absolute  truth?  The  importance 
of  the  subject  will  be  our  justification,  we  now  being  in  the  presence  of 
all  forms  of  development  which  Mysticism  has  ever  taken  on,  should  we 
repeat  some  ideas  before  expressed.  As  examples  of  these  multitudinous 
conflicting  *  visions  of  the  faculty  Divine,'  permit  us  to  request  a  careful 
consideration  of  the  following  statements,  whose  validity  none  will 
deny. 

The  Oriental  Yogee  of  a  certain  class,  the  Grecian  and  Medic3val 
Idealist,  and  the  modern  Transcendentalist  of  a  certain  school,  all  in 
common,  when  they  have  '  put  themselves  into  a  state  of  not-knowing,' 
have  or  had  direct  visions,  as  a  form  of  absolute  truth,  this  formula  : 
*  Erahm,'  '  the  All-One,'  '  God  as  pure  Being,  or  the  Absolute,'  *  alone 
exists ;  everything  else  is  illusion.'  Creation  is  exclusively  by  emanation. 
So  far  an  absolute  unity  of  vision  obtains.  So  far  as  the  character  of 
these  Divine  emanations  is  concerned,  the  visions  of  'this  faculty  Divine* 
are  quite  contradictory.  The  Hindoo  Yogees  reveal,  first  a  Trinity  of  gods, 
and  then  numberless  orders  of  inferior  deities,  all  of  whom  seem  to  be 
evil,  and  are  represented  to  the  mind  through  monstrous  images.  The 
higher  Grecian  emanations  are  of  a  great  variety  of  orders,  and  though 
not  morally  perfect,  are  presented  with  few  exceptions  through  forms  of 
beauty  and  power.  The  Pantheistic  seers,  who  were  educated  in  the 
presence  of  Christian  ideas,  apprehended  forms  of  the  Trinity,  Incarna- 
tion, and  various  orders  of  superior  beings,  such  as  are  designated  in  the 
Scriptures,  but  all  revealed  in  harmony  with  the  Pantheistic  doctrine  of 
being  in  se.     The  highest  developments  of  the  Absolute,  and  all  Intelli- 


412  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

gence  attributed  to  Him,  by  the  Modern  Pantheist,  are  represented  in 
humanity  and  in  human  consciousness.  The  Christian  Mystic  had,  for 
the  most  part,  visions  and  revelations  which  accord  with  the  evangelical 
faith,  and  of  all  the  developments  of  the  highest  forms  of  the  Christian 
life. 

The  disciples  of  Kapila  and  Kant,  in  the  same  'state  of  not-knowing,' 
and  through  the  same  form  of  h  priori  insight,  obtained  this  formula  of 
absolute  truth ;  *  iS'^either  do  I  exist,  nor  anything  which  pertains  to 
myself,'  all  our  knowledge  is  merely  phenomenal,  and  God  exists  but  as  a 
law  of  thouglit.  Two  unknown  entities  exist,  as  the  substance  and 
principle  of  all  things. 

Other  Yogees,  ancient  and  modern,  in  the  same  state  of  non-thought, 
and  through  the  same  identical  form  of  insight,  have  a  direct  vision  of 
matter  as  the  only  reality.  With  them  Atheism  is  the  form  of  absolute 
truth,  and  matter,  with  its  laws,  is  the  principle  of  all  things. 

Others  still  of  the  Buddhist,  Pythagorean,  Neo-Platonistic,  and  the 
Pure  Idealistic  school  of  modern  times,  have,  as  a  similarly  attained 
revelation  of  absolute  truth,  the  formula  that  being  and  knowing  are  one 
and  identical,  and  thought  only  exists  as  the  principle  of  all  things. 

Plato  and  his  school,  after  repudiating  all  knowledge  through  percep- 
tion and  understanding,  and  affirming  that  knowledge  through  the 
sciences  has  merely  a  subjective  validity,  obtained  through  direct  and 
immediate  insight  of  reason,  and  *  in  an  intuitive  manner,'  an  absolute 
knowledge  of  Matter,  Spirit,  Time,  and  Space,  as  realities  in  themselves, 
of  the  eternal  co-existence  of  matter  and  God — of  God,  as  having 
organized  the  universe,  after  having  persuaded  Necessity  to  relinquish  to 
Him  the  control  of  the  material  element ;  of  His  having  committed  for 
completion  and  final  governmental  control.  His  half-finished  works,  to  a 
class  of  Gods  whom  He  had  created  for  the  purpose,  and  then  '  falling 
back  into  his  usual  slumber.' 

We  give  the  above  as  mere  examples  of  the  endlessly  diversified  and 
contradictory  visions  of 'absolute  truth,'  all  of  which  are  obtained  through 
the  same  identical  method,  and  by  means  of  the  same  identical  faculty  of 
intuitive  insight. 

In  what  light,  then,  does  impartial  scientific  integrity  require  us  to 
regard  the  authority  of  this  so-called  'faculty  Divine;'  this  reason,  and 
this  method  of  induction  and  deduction,  when  carried  over  into  the  sphere 
of  the  mixed  sciences,  and  their  authority  in  the  solution  of  the  problem  of 
being  and  its  laws  ?  If  facts  of  the  most  palpable  character  constitute  a 
basis  for  any  deductions  whatever,  we  are  bound  to  regard  this  faculty 
and  method  as  the  most  unreliable  source  of  knowledge  conceivable. 
External  and  internal  perception,  in  the  same  circumstances,  and  when  • 
the  same  cunditioiis  are  fulfilled,  always,  in  the  same  individual,  and  ia 


THE  MEDIAEVAL  EVOLUTION  IN  rillLOSOPIlY.  413 

all  men,  give  the  same  identical  facts.  This  'faculty  divine,'  this  reason, 
this  organ  of  intuitive  insight,  of '  heing  in  se,'  and  of  universal,  necessary, 
and  eternal  truth,  and  this  method  of  science  by  which  we  attain  a 
knowledge  of  absolute  truth,  when  the  same  identical  conditions  are  ful- 
filled, and  in  the  same  identical  circumstances,  give  visions  of  the  Abso- 
lute so  endlessly  diversified  and  contradictory  as  fully  to  realize  the 
idea  of  '  confusion  worse  confounded.' 

In  the  presence  of  these  contradictory  visions,  we  are  also  left  without 
any  criterion  by  which  we  can  form  even  a  probable  conjecture  as  to 
which  is  true  and  which  is  false.  We  have,  undeniably,  the  same  iden- 
tical d,  priori  reasons  for  the  assumption  that  matter  alone  is  real,  as  we 
have  that  spirit  alone  exists,  and  we  as  undeniably  have  no  such 
reasons  for  either  affirmation.  The  d,  posteriori  evidence  is,  also,  equally 
balanced.  From  whatever  standpoint  the  subject  is  contemplated,  no 
grounds  of  discrimination  exist,  by  which  we  can  determine  if  any  of 
these  '  visions  of  the  Absolute '  are  true,  which  are,  and  which  are  not, 
valid  ;  while  each  form  of  vision  is  given  forth  as  of  absolute  authority. 

The  very  form  in  which  these  '  visions  of  the  Absolute,'  are  set  before 
us  involve  the  grossest  absurdities  conceivable.  Suppose  an  individual 
has  a  direct  and  immediate  vision  of  matter  as  a  reality  in-  itself.  Such 
perception  is  valid  for  the  reality  and  character  of  its  object  But 
suppose  that  our  Yogee,  or  Scientist,  affirms  that  in  the  same  act  of  vision 
he  perceives  that  nothing  else  but  matter  does  exist,  that  is,  that  in  in- 
finite space  no  form  of  being  but  the  material  form  does  exist.  Here  we 
find  ourselves  in  the  presence  of  one  of  the  grossest  conceivable  absurdi- 
ties. Perception  is  always  positive,  and  pertains  exclusively  to  its  object, 
and  is  valid  for  the  reality  of  that  specific  object,  and  for  nothing  else. 
Unless  the  existence  of  matter  necessarily  implies,  in  itself,  that  nothing 
else  does  or  can  have  being  in  infinite  space,  a  perception  of  this  substance 
as  real,  presents  no  grounds  \vhatever  for  the  deduction,  or  conjecture 
that  any  other  conceivable  form  of  being  is,  or  is  not,  real.  The  same 
does,  and  must,  hold  true  in  all  other  cases.  Knowledge  direct  and  im- 
mediate of  spirit  finite  or  infinite,  or  of  thought,  feeling,  or  willing,  is 
valid  in  itself  for  the  reality  and  character  of  its  object,  and  for  nothing 
else,  whose  being  is  not  necessarily  iucoiupatible  with  that  of  the  object 
known  to  exist.  Mr.  Fichte,  we  will  suppose,  has  had  an  actual  know- 
ledge, a  reason-vision,  of  a  real  subject,  *  a  me,'  which,  from  principles 
and  laws  inhering  in  its  inner  being,  makes  real  to  itself  just  such  a 
universe  as  now  lies  out  before  us,  with  God  as  its  author ;  the  *  me ' 
being  the  originator  of  all  that  appears  as  real  to  said  '  me.'  Mr. 
Schelling,  on  the  other  hand,  has  an  equally  valid  vision  of  an  'absolute 
and  infinite  existence.'  How  the  finite  mind  can  have  such  a  vision  of 
'  being  in  se,'  and  that  being  infinite  and  absolute,  is  more  than  we  can 


414  ^  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

comprehend.  We  will  suppose,  however,  that  our  philosopher  has  had 
'  through  reason,  in  an  intuitive  manner,'  a  direct  and  immediate  know- 
ledge of  such  a  being — a  being  possessed  of  the  identical  potences 
ascribed  to  it — one  potence,  that  of  reflection,  in  which  this  infinite 
substance  'embodies  its  own  infinite  attributes  in  the  Finite,'  and  thus 
sees  itself  objectified  in  the  forms  and  productions  of  the  material  world, 
that  is,  sees  itself  as  being,  in  all  respects,  the  opposite  of  what  it  really 
is  ;  and  another  potence  in  which  there  is  *  a  regress  of  the  Finite  into 
Infinite,'  and  'nature  makes  itself  absolute,'  and  'assumes  the  form  of  the 
Eternal.'  Mr.  Hegel,  we  will  suppose  finally,  these  examples  being  suf- 
ficient as  illustrations,  Mr.  Hegel  has  had  an  actual  vision,  *  through 
reason,  in  an  intuitive  manner,'  of  *  a  thought,'  or  '  idea,'  which  actually 
subjecticizes  and  objecticizes  itself,  as  matter  and  spirit,  as  finite  and  in- 
finite, and  makes  real  to  itself  an  organized  material  and  mental  universe, 
as  existing  in  time  and  space,  and  under  the  control  of  an  infinite  and 
perfect  mind ;  all  this  being  generated  by  this  thought  wholly  from  itself, 
by  itself,  and  for  itself  If  these  men  have  had  such  an  absolute  know- 
ledge, of  such  a  '  me,'  such  *  an  absolute  and  infinite  substance,'  and  such, 
a  '  thought,'  we  must  admit  the  actual  existence  of  just  such  realities. 
But  when  these  philosophers  assure  us,  that  through  the  same  absolute 
insight  of  reason,  and  in  the  same  perceptive  act,  they  had  an  absolute 
knowledge,  the  one  of  the  '  me,'  the  other  of  *  an  infinite  substance,'  and 
the  third,  of  '  thought,'  as  the  only  existing  reality,  and  as  '  the  substance 
and  principle  of  all  things ;'  here  we  find  ourselves  in  the  presence,  not 
merely  of  absolute  contradictions,  but  of  the  infinitely  absurd.  Absolute 
knowledge  cannot  contradict  itself,  and  intuition  simply,  and  exclusively, 
gives  its  object  as  real,  and  neither  affirms,  or  can  affirm,  the  reality,  or 
non-reality,  of  any  other  object  If  thought  can  exist,  and  be  perceived 
to  exist,  without  a  thinker,  such  a  fact  has  no  bearing  whatever  upon 
the  question  whether  thought,  in  other  cases,  does,  or  does  not,  exist, 
as  an  act  of  a  real  subject  who  thinks;  and  the  qtiestion  whether  sucli 
thinkers  do  exist,  rests  upon  its  own  independent  evidence.  When  an 
individual  affirms  that  he  has  a  direct  and  immediate  knowledge  of  a 
certain  form  of  being  as  real,  we  may,  without  violating  reason,  credit  his 
affirmation.  But  when  he  affirms  that,  in  the  same  intuitive  act,  he  per- 
ceives that  this  object  does,  and  that  nothing  else,  does  or  can  exist,  wo 
dementate  ourselves,  if  we  do  not  repudiate  his  pretension  as  perfectly 
absurd. 

Now  this  is  the  exclusive  character  of  all  the  professed  visions  of  ab- 
solute truth  under  consideration.  In  the  same  intuitive  act,  our  Yogee, 
Seer,  Scientist,  Philosopher,  Transcendentalist,  by  whatever  name  we 
designate  him,  professes  to  perceive  that  one  specific  form  of  being  exists 
as  the  sole  reality,  the  substance  and  principle  of  all  things ;  in  other 


THE  MEDIEVAL  EVOLUTION  IN  PIIILOSOrHY.  415 

words,  that  this  one  object,  and  nothiug  else,  does  have  being.  A  move 
absurd  idea  never  had  pbice  in  Be«llam. 

The  real  character  of  the  forms  of  absolute  truth  professedly  found  by 
these  philosophers  is  also  in  palpable  contrail  iction  to  their  own  formal 
deflnition  of  reason  as  an  intuitive  faculty.  They  all  unite  in  defining 
this  faculty,  as  the  faculty  which  by  direct  and  immediate  intuitive 
insight,  gives  universal,  necessary,  and  eternal  truth.  I^ot  one  of  the 
forms  of  truth  which  they  profess  to  find,  through  this  faculty,  has  any 
such  characteristic  whatever.  The  peculiar  characteristic  of  a  necessary 
truth,  is  the  absolute  impossibility  of  even  conceiving  of  the  op[)<isite  as 
being  true.  Space,  for  example,  we  conceive  to  be  real,  with  the  absolute 
impossibility  of  even  conceiving  of  its  non-realiiy.  Not  so  with  any  one 
form  of  affirmed  absolute  truth  which  these  thinkers  professedly  find 
through  insight  of  Reason.  To  every  formula  embodying  such  affirmed 
form  of  truth,  another  contradictory  one  stands  opposed,  and  one  is  just 
as  conceivably  true  as  the  other.  To  the  proposition,  God  exists 
as  the  substance  and  principle  of  all  things,  for  example,  two  others, 
whose  validity  is  equally  conceivable  with  this,  stand  opposed,  namely, 
matter,  exists  as  such  a  principle ;  and  matter,  finite  spirit,  time,  space, 
and  a  personal  God  are  all  realities  in  themselves.  The  doctrines  of 
Materialism,  Pantheism  ;  Ideal  Dualism,  Subjective,  or  Pure  Idealism, 
are  none  of  them  forms  of  necessary  truth,  and  cannot,  therefore,  have 
been  given  through  (ltj)riori  insight,  as  they  are  affirmed  to  have  been. 

The  principles,  we  remark  finally,  which  lie  at  the  basis  of  all  the 
systems  constructed  through  this  method  and  insight,  are,  as  we  have 
shown  in  other  connections,  mere  assumptions  which  have  not  the  remotest 
claims  to  validity.  "We  refer  to  the  assumption,  that  but  one  sul>8tance  or 
principle  of  all  things  exists,  and  that  knowledge  but  in  its  objective, 
or  subjective  form  is  possible,  and  is  actual  in  one  exclusive  form.  Take 
away  either  of  these  assumptions,  and  Materialism  and  Idealism,  in  all 
their  forms,  '  vanish  into  naught'  Now,  as  we  have  formerly  demon- 
strated, no  truth  is,  or  can  be,  more  evident  than  this,  that  neither  of 
these  assumptions  is  self-evidently  true,  and  neither  can  be  verified,  as  a 
deductive  truth.  In  the  absence  of  absolute  omniscience,  we  cannot 
affirm  what  substances  do,  and  do  not  exist,  in  infinite  space.  The  avowal 
of  such  principles  evinces  infinite  presumption  in  those  who  put  them 
forward  as  principles  in  science. 

What  real  claims,  then,  have  this  affirmed  d  priori  insight  of  Eeason  in 
respect  to  'being  in  se,'  and  to  necessary  and  eternal  truth,  and  this 
method  of  A  priori  induction  and  deduction  in  ^  posteriori  sciences,  what 
real  claims,  we  ask,  have  this  affirmed  insight,  and  this  boasted  method, 
to  our  regard,  as  a  means  of  attaining  to  a  knowledge  of  truth  in  any 
form  }     On  purely  scieniitic  grounds,  the  results  y)i  such  insight,  and  tiie 


4i6  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

deductions  reached  through  such  a  method,  have  no  more  claims  to  our 
regard,  as  forms  of  real,  and  more  than  all,  of  absolute  truth,  than  have 
the  wildest  visions  and  deductions  of  lunacy.  The  idea  that  men  of  a 
certain  class,  after  '  putting  themselves  into  a  state  of  not-knowing,'  after 
*  assuming  all  existing  forms  of  knowledge  to  be  uncertain,'  after  ignoring 
all  facts  of  external  and  internal  perception,  and  all  deductions  reached 
through  the  natural  action  of  all  the  conceptive,  associative,  and  reasoning 
faculties,  can  then  look  off  into  infinite  space  and  eternal  duration,  and  by 
h  priori  insight  of  Reason,  know  absolutely  what  substances  and  causes  do, 
and  do  not,  exist  and  act  there — such  an  idea  has  nothing  whatever  but  its 
presumptuous  *  impudence,'  and  infinite  absurdity,  to  commend  it  to  our 
regard.  Yet,  when  you  deny  the  validity  of  such  insight,  you  throw  all 
the  claims  of  Materialism  and  Idealism,  in  all  their  forms,  into  a  midnight 
eclipse.  The  Christian  mystic  has  open  before  him  two  books  of  God — 
that  of  Nature,  and  that  of  Inspiration.  To  each  of  these,  he  utterly 
closes  his  mind,  and  then  in  a  state  of  blank  non-thought,  expects  in- 
fallible Divine  illumination.    Can  any  expectation  be  more  preposterous? 

The  Teachings  of  Thomas  Aquinas. 
Thomas  Aquinas,  sometimes  called  the  Universal,  and  at  others,  the 
Angelic,  Doctor  (1225 — 1274),  did  more  than  any  other  individual  to 
impart  system  to  the  scientific  and  theological  thought  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  To  give  a  full  view  of  his  varied  teachings  pertains  to  those  whose 
object  is  a  mere  history  of  doctrine,  and  not  to  a  fundamental  criticism 
of  systems  of  Piiilosophy.  The  following  are  among  the  most  important 
of  his  teachings  which  possess  a  permanent  interest  for  the  race : 

1.  The  object  of  science  is  the  perfection  of  man,  and  each  particular 
science  has  a  specific  relation  to  this  one  end.  As  individual  men  con- 
stitute a  society  organized  for  the  end  referred  to,  so  the  varied  sciences ; 
and  that  science  is  of  all  others  the  most  regulative,  which  is  most 
universal  in  its  principles  and  deductions.  This  high  and  all  regulative 
sphere  is  occupied  by  the  science  of  Metaphysics,  inasmuch  as  it  treats  of 
universal  Being  and  its  laws,  and  of  causes,  and  especially  of  the  great 
doctrine  of  Ultimate  Causation.  The  origination  of  such  a  conception 
verifies  its  author  as  one  of  the  truest  and  most  profound  of  World- 
Thinkers.  When  the  true  doctrine  of  Metaphysics  shall  have  been  fully 
developed,  this  science  will  occupy  the  precise  place  at  the  head  of  all  the 
sciences  to  which  Aquinas  has  assigned  it,  and  all  the  deductions  of 
Anti-Theism,  in  all  its  forms,  will  disappear  for  ever  from  the  sphere  of 
scientific  thought. 

2.  Tliis  great  thinker,  also,  anticipated  Dr  Eeid  in  the  solution  of  the 
problem  -which  for  ages  had  been  agitated  between  the  disciples  of 
Nominaliiim  and  of  Realism.     He  agreed  with  Aristotle  in  affirming  that 


THE  MEDIM  VAL  E  VOL  UTION  IN  PHIL  OS  0  PHY.  417 

individuals  alone  exist,  and  in  denying  the  Platonic  doctrine  of  the  real 
existence  of  Universal  Ideas.  He  differed  equally  from  the  Nominalists 
in  respect  to  the  dogma,  that  universals  are  mere  words  which  represent 
no  ideas  in  the  mind  or  objects  external  to  it.  Ideas,  as  the  archetypes 
after  which  all  things  were  created,  had  an  eternal  existence  in  the 
Divine  mind.  General  terms,  also,  as  representing  the  qualities  common 
to  all  individuals  of  a  given  class,  and  the  conception  of  said  qualities  in 
the  mind,  do  have  a  real,  subjective,  and  objective  existence.  Here  we 
have  the  real  doctrine  of  Conceptualism,  which  is  now  universally  ad- 
mitted to  be  the  true  doctrine,  and  which  Aquinas  was  the  first  to  announce 
in  a  scientific  form. 

3.  To  Thomas  Aquinas,  we  remark  again,  the  world  is  indebted  for  the 
statement,  in  scientific  form,  of  the  only  valid  method  of  proving  the  existence 
of  God.  In  the  order  of  existence,  he  taught,  causes  precede  their  effects. 
In  the  order  of  human  knowledge,  however,  causes  are  known  but  through 
their  effects.  God,  for  example,  is  known  to  mind,  as  *  the  Creator  of  the 
heavens  and  the  earth,'  '  the  Former  of  all  things.'  We  do  not  know  the 
universe  through  b,  priori  knowledge  of  God,  but  God  through  or  *  by 
the  things  that  are  made.'  The  truth  of  this  doctrine  is  evinced  by 
inspiration  on  the  one  hand,  by  Eeason-intuition,  on  the  other.  The 
idea  of  God  renders  the  universe  conceivably  possible,  and  its  facts 
correspondingly  explicable;  but  does  not,  in  itself,  imply  the  reality, 
either  of  a  creation,  or  of  a  Creator.  A  doer  can  be  known  but  by  what  he 
does.  The  doctrine  of  creation  and  a  Creator  does,  and  must,  come  under 
the  same  principle.  The  argument  of  Aquinas  upon  this  subject  is  thus 
very  clearly  and  succinctly  stated  in  the  'Epitome  of  the  History  of 
Philosophy.'  'The  philosopher  can  therefore  arrive  at  a  demonstration  of 
God  only  by  following  an  order  relative  to  the  human  mind,  by  taking 
effects  as  the  principle  of  the  demonstration,  in  order  to  ascend  to  the 
cause  as  a  logical  consequence.'  The  b,  priori  argument  of  Anselm,  our 
author,  as  a  consequence,  rightly  rejects  as  invalid. 

In  his  presentation  of  the  Theistic  Argument,  Aquinas  fails  in  one 
essential  particular.  He  rightly  makes  the  fact  of  creation  as  an  event 
occurring  in  time  an  essential  principle  and  element  in  the  argument; 
but  wrongly  bases  the  evidence  of  this  fact,  not  upon  deductions  of  the 
universal  science  of  nature,  but  upon  the  affirmed  natural,  and  self-evident 
impossibility  of  an  infinite  series  of  successive  events.  Thus,  for  ages, 
was  a  wrong  direction  given  to  Theistic  thought,  and  a  wrong  basis 
furnished  for  the  Theistic  Argument. 

4.  The  highest  claims  which  this  great  Doctor  has  to  our  regard,  are 
based,  perhaps,  upon  the  relation  which  he  has  most  clearly  and  truly 
set  forth  between  the  doctrines  of  Natural  and  Revealed  Religion.  The 
former,  he  taught,  such  as  those  of  God  as  *  the  Former  of  all  things,'  the 

27 


4i8  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

soal,  and  duty,  are  common  to  revelation  and  to  science  both,  and  can  be 
verified  on  rational  grounds.  The  latter,  such  as  the  Trinity,  Incarnation, 
and  Atonement,  are  not  contrary  to,  but  above  Reason.  In  the  sphere 
of  science,  they  may  be  vindicated,  on  account  of  their  conscious  ac- 
cordance with  the  known  condition  and  wants  of  man,  as  being  probably 
true,  and  as  not  being  self-contradictory,  or  opposed  to  absolutely  known 
truths,  and  therefore  absurd.  In  all  other  respects  they  are  above 
science,  and  rest  as  objects  of  faith  upon  Divine  revelation.  No  thinker 
has  set  forth  these  fundamental  distinctions  with  greater  clearness  and 
force  than  has  this  'Universal  Doctor,'  and  here  his  teachings  have 
claims  of  infinite  weight  upon  theologians  and  philosophers  of  all  ages. 
Their  common  duty  is  to  vindicate  for  all  truths  of  Natural  and  Revealed 
Religion  a  scientific  basis,  and  for  all  doctrines  which  belong  exclusively 
to  Revealed  Religion  a  full  accordance  with  Reason  in  the  sense  above 
indicated.  All  who  object  to  these  doctrines  must  be  held  most  strictly 
to  these  forms  of  disproof — a  demonstration  of  their  want  of  accordance 
with  the  conscious  facts  and  wants  of  humanity — of  their  being  self- 
contradictory — or  of  being,  in  fact  and  form,  incompatible  with  absolutely 
known  truths.  No  other  forms  of  disproof  or  objection  must  be  admitted 
as  having  any  bearing  whatever  against  any  such  doctrine,  and  these 
must  lie  against  such  doctrines,  not  as  stated  by  certain  individuals  or 
sects,  but  as  they  are  actually  set  forth  in  the  Scriptures. 

Decline  and  Fall  op  Scholasticism, 
Scholasticism  in  its  early  developments,  as  represented  in  the  maxim 

*  Credo  ut  intelligam,'  met  with  strong  opposition  within  the  circle  of 
leading  teachers  in  the  Church.  Abelard,  for  example  (1079 — 1142), 
laid  down  this  fundamental  principle,  as  having  self-evident  validity, 

*  that  rational  insight  must  prepare  the  way  for  faith,  since  without  that 
faith  is  not  sure  of  its  truth '  [Ueberweg,  vol.  i  p.  387],  '  My  disciples,' 
he  says,  *  asked  me  for  arguments  drawn  from  Philosophy  such  as  Reason 
demanded^  begging  me  to  instruct  them  that  they  might  understand,  and 
not  merely  repeat  what  was  taught  them ;  since  no  one  can  believe  any- 
thing until  he  has  first  understood  it,  and  it  is  ridiculous  to  preach  to 
others  what  neither  teacher  nor  pupil  understands.'  The  wide  popularity 
of  Abelard,  the  multitude  and  zeal  of  his  disciples,  and  the  manifest 
truth  of  his  leading  utterances  on  this  subject,  originated  and  perpetuated 
within  the  Church  a  strong  opposition  to  the  extreme  doctrine  of  Scholas- 
ticism, and  prepared  the  way  for  its  final  overthrow. 

The  rise  of  experimental  studies,  and  the  open  opposition  of  not  a  few 
of  the  Scholastic  dogmas  to  forms  of  demonstrated  truth,  contributed 
much  to  ensure  the  same  result.  Roger  Bacon,  one  of  the  greatest 
thinkers  the  world   has   known  (1214 — 1294),  really  commenced   the 


THE  MEDIMVAL  EVOLUTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY.  419 

work  which  Francis  Bacon  did  so  much  to  consummate  near  the  begin- 
ning of  the  seventeenth  century.  The  former  was  confined  in  prison  for 
ten  years  on  account  of  his  heretical  teachings  in  the  Natural  Sciences. 
In  the  early  days  of  the  Keforination,  his  writings,  as  containing  such 
heresies,  were  committed  to  the  flames.  The  impulse  given  to  such 
studies,  however,  could  not  be  checked.  The  wonderful  advance  in 
jpxperimental  knowledge  which  followed  the  discovery  of  the  magnet 
and  of  the  telescope,  the  discovery  of  America  and  the  circumnaviga- 
tion of  the  globe,  together  with  the  demonstrations  of  such  thinkers  as 
Galileo  and  Copernicus,  and  their  associates,  in  subsequent  ages,  so  abso- 
lutely exposed  the  false  teachings  of  Scholasticism  in  the  sphere  of  scientific 
thought,  as  to  assure  the  downfall  of  the  system. 

This  consummation  was  hastened  and  completed  by  the  revival  of 
letters  which  followed  the  discovery  of  the  art  of  printing,  and  the 
influence  of  the  Greek  scholars  who  fled  from  Constantinople  to  Italy, 
and  other  parts  of  Europe,  on  the  fall  of  the  Eastern  Empire.  The 
genei-al  introduction  of  classic  literature,  and  with  it  the  wide  diffusion  of 
free  and  independent  thought,  gradually  weakened  and  finally  broke  the 
idhackles  of  authority. 

The  Dogma  that  Doubt  is  a  Prerequisite  Condition  of  Knowledge. 
Abelard  not  only  opposed  the  dogma,  '  Credo  ut  intelligam,'  by  affirming 
that  *  faith  has  certainty  only  so  far  as  it  is  transformed  into  science,'  but 
also  taught  the  doctrine  that  doubt  is  the  necessary  pre-requisite  of  real 
knowledge.  *  By  doubting,'  he  says,  *  we  are  led  to  inquire,  and  by 
inquiring  we  perceive  the  truth.'  To  this  principle,  he  affirms,  Christ 
refers  in  the  injunction,  *  Seek,  and  ye  shall  find ;  knock,  and  it  shall  be 
opened  unto  you.'  *  Dubitando  enim  ad  inquisiorura  venemus;  in- 
quirendo  veritam  percipimus ;  juxta  quod  et  Veritas  ipsa  Qucerite,  inquit, 
invenietis;  pulsat,  et  aperieiur  vobis.'  This  principle  of  doubt  as  the 
condition  of  attaining  to  a  valid  knowledge  of  truth,  the  condition  first 
announced  by  Abelard,  was  introduced  into  the  sphere  of  modern  science 
by  Des  Cartes,  and  has  since  been  the  guiding  light  of  Transcendental 
thought  in  all  its  forms.  The  Transcendental  philosopher,  *  when  he 
begins  to  philosophize,  puts  himself  into  a  state  of  not-knowing/  and 
*  assumes  all  his  previous  knowledge  to  be  uncertain,'  his  avowed  object 
being  thereby  to  'find  a  knowledge  which  shall  be  certain,  or  be  rendered 
such.'  In  respect  to  this  assumption,  Des  Cartes  thus  speaks :  '  I  do  not 
in  this  imitate  the  Sceptics,  who  doubt  for  no  other  purpose  but  that  they 
may  doubt,  and  seek  for  nothing  but  incertitudeL  My  whole  endeavour 
in  this  matter  is  that  I  may  find  that  which  is  certain.'  **  This  purifica- 
tion of  the  mind  [from  all  forms  of  previous  knowledge,  this  state  of 
universal  doubt]  is  effected,'  says  Coleridge,  'by  an-absolute  and  Bcientifio 

27—2 


420  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Scepticism  to  which  the  mind  voluntarily  determines  itself  for  the  specific 
purpose  of  future  certainty.'  This  '  prudential  doubt '  of  al)  existing 
certitude  is  presented  in  all  schools  of  Idealism  as  the  immutable  and 
certain  condition  of  attaining  to  *  all  wisdom  and  all  knowledge,'  Let 
us,  for  a  few  moments,  consider  this  '  prudential  doubt,'  and  see  if  we 
cannot  find  its  true  and  proper  place  in  the  sphere  of  science. 

Let  us  first  consider  the  motive  which,  in  the  form  now  under  considerak 
tion,  doubt  presents  for  diligent  research  for  truth  and  '  future  certainty.' 
In  *  assuming  all  our  previous  knowledge  to  be  uncertain,'  we  of  course 
assume,  in  the  same  form  and  to  the  same  extent,  the  invalidity  of  the 
faculties  which  have  furnished  ns  with  this  knowledge.  But  all  the 
faculties  of  which  we  are  in  conscious  possession  have  been  most 
diligently  and  honestly  employed  in  our  previous  search  for  truth  and 
certitude,  and  all  to  no  purpose.  These  twenty,  fifty,  or  seventy  years, 
men  may  say,  have  we  '  come  to,'  and  employed  these  faculties,  seeking 
truth  and  certainty  by  and  through  them,  and  have  found  nothing  but 
incertitude.  Where  is  the  motive  for  their  still  further  use  *  for  the 
specific  purpose  of  future  certainty  ]'  All  mankind,  we  remark  again, 
have  for  thousands  of  years  employed  these  same  faculties  for  this  one 
specific  purpose,  and  have  obtained  nothing  through  them  but  the  *  wild 
grapes '  of  incertitude.  This  miscalled  *  prudential  doubt,'  takes  away 
totally  every  rational  motive  for  a  further  use  of  the  Human  Intelligence 
in  a  search  for  truth  and  certitude,  and  renders  such  hope  in  their  use 
perfectly  absurd.  The  only  rational  motive  which  can  be  presented  to  the 
mind  for  searching  for  truth  and  certitude,  is  found  in  the  doctrine  that 
truth  and  conscious  certitude  both  lie  within  the  reach  of  our  intellectual 
faculties,  and  that  in  their  honest  and  earnest  use  both  are  attainable ; 
and  this,  in  opposition  to  the  gross  perversion  of  Abelard,  is  the  real 
meaning  of  our  Saviour  in  the  admonition,  '  Ask  and  ye  shall  receive ; 
knock  and  it  shall  be  opened  unto  you.'  The  basis  of  faith,  as  set  forth 
by  reason  and  revelation  both,  together  with  all  rational  motives  for 
searching  for  truth  and  certitude,  is  not  doubt,  but  present  rational  con- 
viction. 

It  is  admitted  by  all  these  philosophers  that  by  means  of  the  faculties 
under  consideration — the  perceptive  and  reflective  faculties  common  to  the 
race,  we  can  attain  to  neither  truth  nor  real  certitude.  This  high  attain- 
ment is  reached  by  a  special  faculty,  not  possessed  by  the  masses,  nor,  in 
the  language  of  Coleridge,  by  many  *  even  of  the  most  learned  and  culti- 
vated classes,'  a  special  faculty  born  in  philosophers  of  certain  schools,  a 
faculty  which  goes  by  different  names,  as  Eeason,  '  the  Inner  Sense,'  '  the 
Vision  and  Faculty  Divine,'  the  Vernunst,  and  Intellectuelle  Anschauuug. 
Of  this  faculty  the  Oriental  Yogees  claim  an  exclusive  possession.  Plato 
affirmed   that  it  was  possessed  but  'by  the  Gods  and  a  very  small 


THE  MEDIEVAL  EVOLUTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY.  421 

portion  of  mankind.*  'There  are  many  among  us,'  says  Coleridge,  'and 
some  who  think  themselves  philosophers,  too,  to  whom  the  philosophic 
organ  is  entirely  wanting.'  Hence,  he  tells  us, '  Philosophy  cannot  be  in- 
telligible to  all,  even  of  the  most  learned  and  cultivated  classes.'  *To 
remain  unintelligible  to  such  a  mind '  [a  mind  in  whom  the  Intellectuelle 
Anschauuug  has  not  been  inborn],  exclaims  Schelling,  '  is  an  honour  and 
a  good  name  before  God  and  man.' 

What  shall  we  think  of  the  authority  of  this  new  and  special  faculty  I 
Can  we  rationally  hope  to  attain  through  it  to  real  knowledge  and  conscious 
certitude  %  How  can  these  philosophers  assure  to  themselves  the  validity  of 
this  faculty  ?  They  have  taken  away  from  themselves  and  the  race  the 
Intelligence  as  it  exists  in  all  minds  in  common,  and  with  it  all  the 
knowledge  and  certitude  obtained  through  its  use  and  action,  and  neither 
we  nor  they  can  tell  where  they  have  located  either.  How  can  they  know 
that  this  new-born  faculty  is  not,  like  its  predecessors,  *  a  liar  from  the  be- 
ginning?' Do  they  say  that  by  'this  Vision  and  Faculty  Divine  '  they 
have  a  consciously  direct  and  immediate  aspect  of  the  Absolute  1  This  is 
all  that  any  faculty  of  intuition  can  yield  us.  But  we  do  have  in  the  use 
of  other  intuitive  faculties  a  knowledge  as  consciously  direct,  immediate, 
and  absolute,  of  Matter  and  Spirit  as  real  entities.  If  intuition  con- 
sciously direct  and  immediate  is  of  doubtful  validity  in  one  case,  why  not 
in  the  other  1  *  The  scientific  Scepticism  to  which  the  mind  voluntarily 
determines  itself,'  in  respect  to  the  action  of  the  common  intuitive  faculties, 
must,  in  all  reason,  pass  over  to  the  intuitions  of  this  '  Inner  Sense.' 

Besides,  the  former  class  of  intuitions  have  infallible  characteristics  of 
validity  which  are  totally  wanting  in  the  latter.  In  all  minds,  as  we  have 
formerly  demonstrated,  there  exist  the  same  identical  apprehensions  and 
convictions  in  respect  to  the  essential  characteristics  of  Matter  and  Spirit ; 
whereas  the  intuitions  of  this  especial  faculty  are  not  only  totally  wanting 
in  the  mass  of  mankind,  but  absolutely  and  palpably  contradictory,  as 
given  forth  by  different  philosophers  in  whom,  if  in  anybody,  this 
faculty  has  been  fully  '  inborn.'  Who  will  deny  that  we  have  equal 
evidence  of  its  existence  and  action,  for  example,  in  Plato,  Kant,  Fichte, 
Schelling,  and  Hegel  1  Yet,  if  we  credit  the  revelations  of  this  faculty 
in  any  one  of  them,  we  must  as  fully  discredit  them  in  all  the  rest.  If 
we  are  to  doubt  intuitions  identical  in  all  minds,  on  what  authority  can 
we  be  bound  to  credit  those — which,  to  say  the  most,  exist  but  in  the 
brains  of  certain  philosophers,  and  are  here  as  revelations  of  absolute 
truth,  to  be  sure,  but  are  at  the  same  time  as  contradictory  as  are  the  '  re- 
sponses of  Chaos  and  Old  ^ight '  ?  While  these  philosophers  can  by  no 
possibility  verify  to  themselves  the  validity  of  this  in-born  faculty, 
which  has  had  even  imaginary  birth  but  in  their  own  brains,  we  who 
occupy  the  '  cis-Alpine '  regions  of  thought,  are  in  a  bad  fix  truly.    Having 


421  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

assumed  all  our  existing  forms  of  knowledge  to  be  uncertain,  having  seen 
that  these  philosophers  cannot  verify  to  themselves,  much  less  to  us,  the 
validity  of  this  special  faculty,  and  having  found  that  in  different  philo- 
sophers in  whom,  if  anywhere  'it  is  inborn,'  its  revelations  of  the  Absolute 
are  absolutely  contradictory ;  and  having  no  criteria  by  which  we  can 
distinguish  the  real  Absolute  from  the  unreal,  we  are  out  at  sea  in  deep 
and  perilous  midnight,  with  no  chart  or  compass  to  guide  us  in  our  re- 
searches after  truth  and  certitude.  So  much,  and  no  more,  and  no  less, 
do  we  gain  by  means  of  this '  prudential  doubt,'  *  that  scientific  Scepticism 
to  which  we  voluntarily  determine  ourselves.' 

Still  further,  we  have  only  to  do  what  these  Idealistic  philosophers  do, 
assume  that  we  have  and  can  have  no  valid  intuitions  through  external 
perception,  and  that  we  do  and  can  have  through  consciousness  a  valid 
knowledge  of  Spirit  or  its  operations,  and  all  the  forms  and  systems  of 
Idealism  ever  developed  will  rise  up  before  us  in  their  perfected  entire- 
iiess,  and  that  through  the  proper  action  of  the  common  faculties  of  the 
Intelligence,  without  the  aid  of  any  special  faculty  at  all.  This  we  have 
already  demonstrated.  The  idea  of  the  existence  of  any  such  faculty  in 
any  class  of  thinkersjs  one  of  the  wildest  dreams  of  a  crazy  philosophy. 
^No  new  and  special  faculty  was  ever '  inborn  '  in  Vayasa,  Gautama  Buddha, 
Pythagoras,  Plato,  Plotinus,  Kant,  Fichte,  Schelling,  Hegel,  or  Coleridge. 
They  were  born,  grew,  ate,  drank,  lived,  and  died,  like  other  men,  had  the 
same  faculties  as  other  men,  no  more  and  no  less  than  they,  and  reasoned 
like  other  men,  excepting  when  they  made  fools  of  themselves  in  their 
methods  of  philosophizing.  We  dementate  ourselves,  when  we  give  the 
remotest  credit  to  their  self-assumed  possession  of  a  *  special  faculty  of 
intellectual  intuition,'  an  '  Inner  Sense,'  a  *  Vernunst,'  an  '  lutellectuelle 
Anschauung,'  not  common  to  the  race.  Give  us  the  assumptions  which 
lie  at  the  basis  of  Idealism,  assumptions  for  the  validity  of  which  no 
reason  whatever  can  be  assigned,  give  us  these  assumptions,  we  say,  and 
without  any  new  faculty  of  any  kind,  and  with  just  the  faculties  common 
to  the  race,  we  will  manufacture  to  order,  and  that  in  full  completeness,  any 
system  which  any  Transcendental  thinker  has  ever  developed.  We  will  not 
only  give  the  origin  and  complete  form  of  the  system,  but  will  demonstrate 
the  source  from  which  all  its  principles  and  elements  were  derived,  and 
the  reason  why  they  occupy  the  identical  places  in  the  system  which  they 
do  occupy.  We  will  then,  as  we  claim  to  have  done  already,  and  will 
do  hereafter,  render  equally  evident  the  fact  that  such  system  has  and  can 
have  no  more  claim  to  our  regard,  as  a  valid  solution  of  the  problem  of 
being  and  its  laws,  than  has  the  wildest  creations  of  Dreamland. 


THE  MEDI^  VAL  E  VOL  VTION'  IN  miL  OSOPHY.  423 

The  Real  Place  of  *  Prudential  Doubt '  in  Science, 

What,  then,  is  the  real  place  and  function,  of  '  prudential  doubt  *  in 
the  domain  of  scientific  research  I  It  pertains  not  at  all,  we  answer,  to 
the  reality  of  truth  itself,  to  the  possibility  of  our  finding  the  truth,  nor 
to  the  validity  of  our  faculties  as  interpreters  of  truth.  In  the  sphere  of 
science,  every  intellectual  faculty  has  its  proper  and  exclusive  place  and 
function,  and  in  that  place  and  in  the  legitimate  exercise  of  that  function, 
has  absolute  and  exclusive  authority.  To  dou^t  the  validity  of  the  In- 
telligence renders  all  research  for  truth  absurd  and  ridiculous.  N"or  can 
the  validity  of  any  faculty  within  its  proper  and  exclusive  sphere  be 
questioned,  but  for  reasons  which  necessarily  throw  equal  doubt  over  the 
action  of  all  the  other  faculties,  and  thus  render  all  the  principles  and 
deductions  of  all  the  sciences  chimerical  Absolute  faith  in  truth,  and  in 
the  validity  of  all  our  intellectual  faculties,  is  an  immutable  condition  of 
any  rational  procedure  in  science. 

In  connection  with  the  Intelligence,  however,  we  have  other  faculties, 
the  Sensibility  and  Will,  whose  aspirations  and  sentiments  are  every- 
where intermingled  with  the  real  dicta  of  the  Intelligence.  Hence,  in- 
termingled with  forms  of  valid  knowledge,  we  have  numberless  forms  of 
opinion,  belief,  conjecture,  guessing,  assumptions,  and  vain  imagining  ; 
some  of  which  may  or  may  not  be  true,  and  more,  perhaps,  are  utterly 
false,  or  but  half-trutha  Here,  then,  is  a  wide  sphere  for  'prudential 
doubt.'  An  affirmed  system  of  knowledge  is  before  us.  If  we  were 
absolutely  certain  that  we  have  here  nothing  but  the  exclusive  action  of 
the  unperverted  intelligence,  we  may  rationally  embrace  the  system  as 
the  exclusive  embodiment  of  pure  truth.  We  call  to  mind,  however, 
that  most  sjstems  are  based  upon  mere  assumptions  in  the  place  of  self- 
evident  and  necessary  principles,  and  that  in  the  rearing  up  of  systems, 
opinions,  beliefs,  conjectures,  guessing,  and  assumption,  have  place,  where 
nothing  but  logical  deductions  should  appear.  'Prudential  doubt'  here 
conies  in,  and  induces  careful  and  rigid  scrutiny  in  all  places  where  error, 
in  the  forms  designated,  may  appear. 

A  system  of  religion  is  before  us — a  system  embodied  in  a  given 
volume,  claiming  to  be  of  divine  origin  and  authority.  We  call  to  mind 
the  fact  that  many  such  systems  are  in  the  world — systems  which  have, 
undeniably,  their  origin  in  mere  superstition  and  imposture.  From  such 
facts,  the  spirit  of  Infidelity  assumes,  without  examination,  that  this  is 
one  among  the  many  other  creations  of  falsehood — an  infinite  leap  in 
logic,  a  leap  in  which  infinite  and  eternal  interests  are  suspended  upon 
mere  conjecture.  'Prudential  doubt'  which  pertains  equally,  prior  to 
examination,  to  positive  belief  or  disbelief,  induces  the  most  careful  and 
candid  examination  of  all  the  forms  of  evidence,  external  and  internal,  on 


424  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

which  theclairasof  this  religion  are  based,  and  a  decision  in  perfect  accordance 
with  the  weight  of  that  evidence.  Faith,  or  dissent,  in  such  a  case,  and 
on  no  other  condition  will  have  a  rational  basis.  Suppose  that  research 
is  refused,  or  conducted  under  the  control  of  a  doubt  of  the  validity  of 
the  Intelligence  in  the  research  for  truth  in  such  cases.  We  then  doubt, 
that  we  may  doubt,  and  suspend  infinite  concerns  upon  lawless  assump- 
tion. 

For  ages  prior  to  Sir  Isaac  ITewton,  manldnd  had  generally  believed  in 
ghosts.  When  the  question  came  before  him,  he  neither  affirmed  nor 
denied  the  common  faith  ;  but  holding  his  mind  in  a  state  of  '  prudential 
doubt '  between  belief  and  disbelief,  carefully  examined  the  real  facts 
bearing  upon  the  subject.  The  result  of  the  examination  was  a  rational 
denial  of  that  faith.  If  Infidelity  existed  as  the  result  of  such  an  exam- 
ination of  the  real  evidences  of  the  Christian  religion,  such  unbelief 
would  be  without  sin.     Such  are  the  express  teachings  of  our  Saviour. 

*  Prudential  doubt,'  then,  rightly  understood,  has  an  important  place 
and  use  in  scientific  research,  and  its  absence  always  results  in  the 
credulity  of  superstition  or  unbelief,  which  are  twin  sisters  of  one  common 
mother — infidelity  of  will  to  rational  conviction.  This  form  of  doubt  is 
equally  antagonistic  to  the  spirit  of  Scepticism  which  doubts  the  Intelli- 
gence in  its  entireness,  or  to  that  of  Materialism  and  Idealism,  which, 
doubt  the  same  Intelligence  in  one  or  the  other  of  its  essential  functions. 
No  chimera  of  false  science  is  more  absurd  than  the  idea  that  the  con- 
dition of  rational  certitude  in  any  form  is  '  a  scientific  scepticism  to  which 
the  mind  voluntarily  determines  itself.'  Voluntarily  determined  doubt, 
in  all  its  forms,  is  wilful  blindness,  in  the  place  of  the  integrity  of 
truth. 

Heterodox  Teachings  and  Systems  op  the  Middle  Ages. 

The  highest  authorities  among  the  Schoolmen  admitted  the  distinction 
between  science  and  religion,  and  that  each  had  its  own  exclusive  method 
of  induction  and  deduction.  What  they  claimed  was,  that  the  doctrines 
of  the  Church  should  be  held  as  absolute  truth  in  both  spheres  in 
common.  The  endless  conflicts  of  thought,  both  in  science  and  religion, 
induced  at  length  a  general  doubt  of  the  possibility  of  scientific  verifica- 
tion of  religious  truth.  This  state  of  doubt  originated  the  dogma,  that, 
of  two  palpably  contradictory  doctrines,  each  might  be  held  as  absolutely 
true,  the  one  as  a  truth  of  theology,  and  the  other  as  a  verity  of  science. 
Under  the  influence  of  this  dogma,  all  forms  of  Materialism,  Idealism, 
and  Scepticism,  were  taught  in  the  schools  and  universities,  as  being 
scientifically  true,  and  accordant  with  right  Eeason,  but  as  being,  at  the 
same  time,  theologically  false.  Such  teachings  were  at  length  condemned 
by  the  ecclesiastical  and  civil  authorities,  as  forms  of  the  grossest  heresy 


THE  MEDIEVAL  EVOLUTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY.  42S 

and  hypocrisy.  Finally,  the  irreconcilable  antagonism  between  region 
and  science  was  admitted  and  affirmed,  and  the  claims  of  the  Christian 
Religion  were  repudiated  on  the  grounds  of  the  higher  claims  of  science. 
We  will  give  a  few  examples  of  these  heretical  teachings. 

Among  the  Arabians,  as  we  have  seen,  we  find  the  systems  of  Idealism, 
Materialism,  and  Scepticism  in  all  their  forms,  and  developed  in  full 
accordance  with  the  Oriental  and  Grecian  methods  of  philosophizing. 
The  Mohammedan  Soufis  answer  perfectly  to  the  Christian  Mystics. 
Among  Mohammedan  theorizers,  also,  we  have  repeated,  in  fact  and  form, 
the  dogma  affirmed  by  the  Schoolmen — that  what  is  true  in  science 
may  be  false  in  theology.  Averroes,  of  the  12  th  century,  gave  professedly 
a  scientific  basis  for  this  distinction — what  was  not  attempted  among 
Christian  thinkers.  *  He  distinguished  in  man  the  intellect  and  the  soul. 
By  the  intellect  man  knows  universal  and  eternal  truths ;  by  the  soul  he 
is  in  relation  to  the  phenomena  of  the  sensible  world.'  Religion  pertains 
to  the  soul,  and  has  relation  to  what  is  phenomenally  true.  Science 
pertains  to  the  intellect,  and  gives  us  what  is  true  in  itself.  As  the 
phenomenal  may  not  correspond  with  the  real,  so  scientific  and  theological 
truth  may  be  contradictory,  the  one  to  the  other. 

In  the  heterodox  teaching  among  Christian  nations  during  the  Middle 
Ages,  we  find  philosophic  thought  moving  round  in  its  old  circles,  and 
repeating  over  and  over  again,  the  ancient  dogmas  of  Idealism,  Materialism, 
and  Scepticism,  with  no  change  of  method,  and  no  new  deductions. 
Scotus  Erigina,  for  example,  in  the  ninth  century,  after  laying  down  and 
repeating,  almost  word  for  word,  the  principles  of  science  as  affirmed  in 
the  Rarika,  an  ancient  document  of  the  Sankhya  Philosophy,  gives  us 
the  Pantheism  of  the  Vedanta  School  simply  modified  in  detail  in  con- 
formity to  Christian  ideas.  '  Scotus  Erigina,'  says  the  Abbe  Gerbert, 
'effected  the  construction  of  a  system  which,  in  grandeur,  in  gigantic 
character,  rivalled  the  bold  assumptions  of  the  Philosophy  of  India.  He 
set  out,  like  that  Philosophy,  with  the  primary  unity,  that  unity  repre- 
sented, according  to  him,  by  the  word  nature,  which  comprehends  the 
universal  whole.  This  starting-point  taken,  what  would  the  office  of 
Philosophy  be  ?  Its  object  would  be  to  explain  how  variety  has  pro- 
ceeded from  the  radical  unity,  and  hence  the  title  of  his  book,  Be  divisione 
Nalurce.'  But  under  all  phenomena,  all  diversities,  he  acknowledges 
nothing  real  but  God,  '  because  His  intelligence  embraces  all  things,  and 
intelligence  in  all  things.'  This  cognitive  power  knew  all  things  before 
they  existed,  and  knew  them  not  as  out  of  itself,  since  out  of  itself  there 
is  nothing,  but  in  itself,  and  as  a  part  of  itself.  Everything  thought  and 
felt  is  but  the  apparition  of  something  which  in  itself  appears  not,  the 
comprehension  of  the  incomprehensible,  the  name  of  the  ineffable,  the 
approach  of  the  unapproachable  One,  the  form  and  th-^  body  of  that 


425  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

•wLich  has  neither  form  nor  body,  the  incarnation  of  spirit,  the  number  of 
the  innumerable,  the  localization  of  that  which  has  no  place,  the  temporary 
duration  of  that  which  is  eternal,  the  circumscription  of  the  uncircum- 
scribed,  the  apparent  boundary  of  the  infinite.'  '  Everything  proceeds 
from  this  unity,  everything  will  one  day  return  thither,  according  to  the 
law  of  a  progress  which  will  spiritualize  all  things.' 

In  Scotus  Erigina,  Schelling  finds  himself,  in  fact  and  form,  anticipated 
in  respect  to  his  doctrine  of  'the  potence  of  reflection,'  in  which  'the 
Infinite  embodies  its  own  infinite  attributes  in  the  Finite,'  and  in  'the 
potence  of  subsumption,'  in  which  there  is  '  a  regress  of  the  Einite  into 
the  Infinite.' 

Amaury,  born  near  the  close  of  the  twelfth  century,  set  forth,  as  stated 
by  Gersau,  the  following  system  :  '  Everything  is  God,  and  God  is  every- 
thing. The  Creator  and  the  creature  are  one  and  the  same  being.  Ideas 
are  at  once  creative  and  created.  God  is  the  end  of  all  things,  in  the  sense 
that  all  things  must  return  to  Him,  in  order  to  constitute  with  Him  an 
immutable  individuality.  Just  as  Abraham  and  Isaac  are  nothing  but 
individualizations  of  htrman  nature,  so  all  beings  are  only  individual 
forms  of  one  sole  essence.' 

Giordano  Bruno  suffered  martyrdom  at  the  stake  in  Eome,  February  17th, 
1600,  for  teaching  the  doctrine  of  Pantheism  in  the  pure  Idealistic  form. 
As  stated  by  Mr.  Lewes,  the  principle  of  his  system  was  '  the  identity  of 
Subject  and  Object,  of  Thought  and  Being.' 

In  such  thinkers  as  David  de  Dinant,  of  the  thirteenth  century,  we 
have  developed  the  doctrine  of  Material  Pantheism.  '  God,'  he  taught, 
*  is  universal  matter ;  the  forms,  that  is,  everything  not  material,  are  but 
imaginary  accidents.' 

We  have  given  the  above  tis  examples  in  illustration  of  the  validity  of 
a  statement  made  in  the  commencement  of  this  treatise,  that  but  a 
specific  number  of  philosophical  systems  are  possible  to  human  thought. 
If  we  admit  the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  Spirit  and  Matter,  and 
consequently  of  that  of  Time  and  Space,  we  must  be  Theists,  and  with 
Theism  admit  the  doctrine  of  Immortality  and  Retribution.  If  we  deny 
the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  Spirit  or  Matter,  or  of  both  in  common, 
then  scientific  thought  must  move  in  the  direction  of  Idealism,  Materialism, 
or  Scepticism,  and  must  generate,  in  all  essential  particulars,  the  same 
identical  systems.  The  following  statement  of  Mr.  Lewes,  in  regard  to 
Scepticism,  is  equally  applicable  to  each  of  the  other  systems.  *  It  is 
worthy  of  remark  that  modem  Sceptics  have  added  nothing  which  is  not 
implied  in  the  principles  of  the  Pyrrhonists.  The  arguments  by  which 
Hume  thought  he  destroyed  all  the  grounds  of  certitude,  are  differently 
stated  from  those  of  Pyrrho,  but  not  differently  founded ;  and  they  may 
be  answered  in  the  same  way.'    If  the  idader  expects,  in  our  advance 


THE  MEDI^  VAL  EVOL  UTION  IN  PHIL  OS  0  PHY.  427 

into  the  sphere  of  the  Modern  Evolution  in  Philosophy,  to  find,  Theism 
excepted,  any  new  systems — systems  which  are  not,  in  their  principles, 
methods,  and  substantial  forms,  as  old  as  Vayasa,  Kapila,  Kanada, 
Gautama  Buddha,  Pythagoras,  Zeno,  Democritus,  Epicurus,  Protagoras, 
and  Pyrrho,  he  will  find  himself  very  much  mistaken.  He  will  find 
nothing  of  which  it  can  truly  be  said,  'See,  this  is  new.'  'The  thing 
that  hath  been,  it  is  that  which  shall  be ;  and  that  which  is  done  is  that 
which  shall  be  done ;  and  there  is  no  new  thing  under  the  sun.'  Error 
has  its  fixed  laws  as  well  as  truth.  When  Philosophy  runs  mad,  there 
will  be  method  in  its  madness,  and  always  the  same  method  and  the 
same  eternally  repeated  forms  of  Logical  Fictions. 

Scientific  Problems  discussed  in  the  Middle  Ages. 

"While  the  faith  of  the  Church  was  set  forth  during  the  Scholastic 
Era  as  absolute  truth,  the  objects  of  faith  were  also  propounded  as 
objects  of  thought  and  inquiry.  *  As  the  right  order  demands,'  says 
Anselm,  *  that  we  first  receive  into  ourselves,  believing  the  mysteries  of 
Christianity  before  subjecting  them  to  speculative  examination,  so  it 
seems  to  me  the  part  of  negligence  if,  after  having  been  confirmed  in  the 
faith,  we  do  not  endeavour  to  understand  what  we  have  believed,'  In 
the  sphere  of  revealed  truth,  science,  as  the  subject  was  then  understood, 
has  two  missions — exposition  and  proof  from  facts  of  nature  known  to 
mind.  Here  was  opened  a  wide  field  for  thought,  inquiry,  diversity,  and 
conflict  of  opinion,  argument,  and  discussion.  Within  this  sphere  thought 
was  not  inactive  among  the  Schoolmen,  particularly  in  the  western  portion 
of  Christendom.  The  methods  of  teaching  and  study  then  common 
in  the  schools  and  universities,  was  most  favourable  to  the  highest 
forms  of  independent  thought  and  intellectual  development.  The  pupil 
was  not  then,  as  is  too  commonly  the  case  now,  a  mere  recipient  of 
thought  through  a  text-book  or  lecture,  but  was  in  the  presence  of  his 
teacher,  to  argue  and  discuss  with  him  the  great  problems  of  universal 
truth.  It  has  been  well  said  that  thinkers  then  argued  themselves  into 
mental  greatness.  There  were,  indeed,  'giants  in  those  days.'  When 
the  great  bodies  of  rival  sects  would  confront  each  other  before  the  pupils 
of  the  varied  schools  and  universities  with  their  conflicting  Theses,  and 
when  the  pupils  would  take  part  in  the  high  debates,  thought  could  but 
move  in  the  sublimity  of  power.  Hence  it  is  that  the  world  has  known 
but  few  thinkers  superior  to  such  men  as  Anselm,  Thomas  Aquiuas,  and 
Eoger  Bacon. 


428  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY, 

FuerUity  of  the  Questions  agitated  by  the  Schoolmen  compared  with  thoss 
common  in  other  Eras. 

Not  a  few  of  the  questions  which  these  great  thinkers  agitated,  as  in- 
volving problems  of  world-interest,  were  indeed  very  useless  and  puerile 
in  character  ;  as,  for  example,  how  many  angels  can  stand  together  upon 
the  point  of  a  needle ;  or  whether  such  being  can  transfer  himself  from 
one  point  in  space  to  another,  without  passing  the  intermediate  points. 
Such  puerility  is  commonly  regarded  as  peculiar  to  Mediaeval  thought,  and 
has  not  unfrequently  been  presented  as  a  reproach  of  the  Christian  Re- 
ligion. Individuals  who  speak  thus  forget  that  deep  thought  expended 
upon  questions  of  like  puerility,  the  building  up  of  world-systems  from 
mere  *  imaginary  substrata,'  the  most  wide-sweeping  deductitins  with  no 
form  of  proof,  and  infinite  leaps  in  logic,  have  constituted  the  chronic  in- 
firmity and  distemper  of  philosophers  from  the  commencement  of  science 
to  the  present  time.  How  much  thought  and  discussion  were  expended 
by  the  greatest  thinkers  ©f-  Greece,  for  example,  over  such  problems  as 
this.  A  single  pebble,  for  example,  is  in  a  given  vessel.  We  say  that 
there  is  one  pebble  there.  A  second  one  is  put  in.  We  now  say  that 
there  are  two  pebbles  in  that  vessel.  What  made  the  two  instead  of  the 
one  1  Did  the  putting  in  of  the  last  one  do  this  ?  If  so,  the  first  one  can- 
not be  reckoned,  and  we  have  but  a  single  pebble  there.  Did  the  one 
first  in  the  vessel  make  the  one  two  1  Here  we  have  the  same  conclusion 
as  before.  The  final  deduction  was  that  the  idea  of  making,  by  addition, 
one  into  two  is  a  chimera.  In  a  similar  manner  every  object  of  thought, 
and  every  form  of  belief,  was  involved  in  inexplicable  puzzles  and  per- 
plexities, until  Socrates  affirmed  that  he  did  not  know  that  he  knew 
anything  at  all,  even  whether  he  himself  did  or  did  not  exist.  Which  is 
the  most  important  or  least  puerile  question — what  made  the  two,  in  place 
of  the  one,  or  how  many  angels  can  stand  together  on  the  point  of  a 
needle  1  Which  is  the  most  puerile  or  least  important,  attempted  proofs 
in  such  cases,  or  the  attempt  of  a  great  leader  of  the  New  Philosophy  in 
our  age,  to  prove  by  argument  that  all  proof  by  argument  is  impossible  1 
Was  there  ever  a  greater  solecism  or  absurdity  than  is  involved  in  a  de- 
duction from  premises  formally  laid  down,  that  all  deduction  from  such 
premises  involves  the  vicious  error  of  petitio  princlpii,  and  said  pro- 
duction presented  to  the  world  as  valid  proof?  One  of  these  world- 
renowned  scientists  promises  to  *  demonstrate  to  us '  that  *  a  unity  of 
power  or  faculty,  a  unity  of  form  and  a  unity  of  substantial  composition, 
does  pervade  the  whole  living  world,'  and  then,  as  a  necessary  inference 
from  said  affirmed  demonstration,  asserts  that  all  mental  and  spiritual 
Phenomena  do  in  fact  arise  from,  and  consist  of,  *  molecular  changes  in 
this  matter  of  life.'     He  then  in  the  process  of  the  same  article  affirms 


THE  MEDIEVAL  EVOLUTION  IN  PHlLOSOFHy,  429 

just  as  absolutely  that  it  is,  *  in  strictness,  true  that  we  know  nothing 
about  the  composition  of  any  body  whatever  as  it  is,'  and  that  '  it  is  cer- 
tain that  we  can  have  no  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  either  Matter  or 
Spirit.'  For  ourselves,  we  should  regard  ourselves  as  being  quite  as  ration- 
ally employed  were  we  engaged  in  a  serious  attempt  to  prove  that  50,000 
angels  can  or  cannot  stand  together  on  the  point  of  a  needle,  as  we  should 
be  in  an  endeavour  to  *  demonstrate '  *  a  unity  of  form  and  a  unity  of 
substantial  composition '  in  that  of  *  the  composition '  and  *  nature  '  of 
which  we  affirm  ourselves  absolutely  ignorant.  The  '  New  Philosophy  ' 
is  throughout  characterized  by  just  such  puerilities  and  absurdities  as 
these — a  formal  attempt  to  demonstrate  '  the  composition,'  *  nature,'  and 
'  laws '  of  a  nature  of  which  absolute  and  necessity  ignorance  is  affirmed. 
We  took  up,  some  time  since,  a  book  designed  to  '  demonstrate '  the 
place  of  man  in  creation.  On  a  certain  page  in  that  book  is  a  line  of 
skeletons,  commencing  with  the  lowest  form  of  the  monkey,  and  ending 
with  that  of  man.  Between  each  two  members  of  the  series  quite  a 
similarity  of  structure  appeared.  From  this  mere  fact  of  skeleton 
similarity,  the  inference  is  gravely  drawn  that  man  is  lineally  descended 
from  the  monkey.  Why  was  not  the  opposite  inference  deduced,  namely, 
that  the  monkey  was  begotten  by  the  man  1  Degeneracy  is  a  fact  as  real 
and  almost  as  common  in  this  world  as  progression  from  the  least  to- 
ward the  more  perfect.  The  argument  is  just  as  valid  in  one  direction  as 
in  the  other,  and  has  not  even  the  appearance  of  validity  in  either 
form.  Humanity  does  degenerate,  but  never  descends  so  low  as  to  touch 
or  approach  brute  irrationality.  There  is  also  progression  in  brutism, 
but  never  towards,  much  less  across,  the  gulf  which  separates  unreason 
from  rationality.  We  might  as  reasonably  and  logically  affirm  that  the 
Finite  originates  the  Infinite,  as  that  brutism  begets  rationality.  ^ 

Mr.  Lewes  very  justly  ridicules  one  of  the  problems  of  the  Schoolmen, 
namely,  *  Whether  God  knows  all  things  through  apprehensions  of  them, 
or  otherwise  V  We  apprehend  that  he  finds  superlative  wisdom  in  the 
attempt  of  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  to  develop  a  valid  system  of  universal 
being  and  its  laws,  after  affirming  absolutely,  that  all  our  knowledge  is 
*  exclusively  phenomenal,'  mere  appearance  in  which  no  reality  appears  aa 
it  is,  and  '  that  the  reality  existing  behind  all  appearance  is,  and  ever 
must  be,  unknown  ;*  and  especially,  in  his  attempt  to  tell  us  just  how 
and  why  matter,  of  the  nature  of  which  we  know  and  can  know  nothing, 
first  becomes  organized  from  chaos,  then  vital  in  vegetables  and  animals, 
and  finally  rational  in  man. 

The  Main  Problems  agitated  by  tJie  Schoolmen  not  PuerUe. 

The  main  problems  about  which  these  Scholastic  thinkers  occupied 
their  thoughts,  however,  were  by  no  means  of  the  puerile  character  above 


43°  A  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

indicated.  To  his  disciples  who  stood  weeping  and  praying  for  him 
around  his  death-hed,  Anselm,  for  example,  when,  as  it  has  heen  well 
said,  *  infinite  truth  was  soon  to  be  unfolded  to  him  in  clear  vision,'  made 
this  remark,  *  I  should  have  heen  glad  before  my  death  to  have  com- 
mitted to  writing  my  ideas  upon  the  origin  of  evil,  for  I  had  got  some 
explanations  which  will  now  be  lost.*  While  Anselm  maintained  the 
doctrine  of  faith  as  the  proper  ground  of  certitude,  he  still  affirmed  that 
the  *  human  mind  should  aim  to  unfold  itself  in  another  mode,  that  of 
science.'  The  condition  of  unity  in  science,  he  asserted,  is  the  develop- 
ment of  a  principle  which  will  explain  all  facts  of  matter  and  spirit  as 
they  are  in  themselves,  and  as  given  in  the  universal  intelligence.  This 
principle,  he  affirmed,  is  found  nowhere  else  than  in  the  idea  of  an  in- 
finite and  perfect  personal  God.  The  reality  of  the  object  of  this  idea 
explains  the  possibility  and  reality  of  the  universe  as  it  is  The  presence 
of  this  idea  in  the  Intelligence  enables  it  to  explain  the  facts  of  the 
universe  as  they  are  known  to  the  universal  mind.  These  two  undeni- 
able facts  absolutely  evince  the  validity  of  tin's  idea.  That  this  great 
thinker  failed  in  the  form  in  which  he  argued  fi  om  the  existence  of  the 
idea  of  God  in  the  mind  to  the  reality  of  the  Divine  existence,  we 
readily  admit.  That  he  has  here  developed  the  great  central  doctrine  of 
universal  truth,  and  indicated  the  method  of  demonstrating  its  validity, 
we  wUl  now  proceed  to  show.  Anselm  is  undeniably  right  in  affirming 
that  rational  mind  cannot  exist  without  becoming  possessed  of  the  idea 
of  an  infinite  and  perfect  personal  God,  and  that  in  the  presence  of  that 
idea,  the  mind  has  an  intuitive  conviction  of  its  validity  What  is  the 
ground  of  this  conviction  1  Here  we  may  fail  as  he  did.  Anselm  sought 
this  ground  in  the  nature  of  the  idea  itself,  and  here  he  was,  no  doubt, 
wrong.  W^e  find  this  ground  in  the  conscious  relations  of  universal  mind 
to  this  idea.  Let  us  see  if  we  have  not  found  the  true  solution.  It  is 
self-evident,  that  no  form  of  valid  disproof,  positive  evidence,  or  even 
antecedent  probability,  exists  against  the  validity  of  this  idea.  If  we 
\  cannot  prove  that  such  a  being  does  exist,  no  one,  as  all  will  admit,  can 
present  the  most  shadowy  form  of  disproof  of  this  doctrine.  Whenever, 
on  the  other  hand,  this  idea  takes  distinct  form  in  the  mind,  every 
department  and  law  of  our  moral  and  spiritual  nature  is  in  conscious 
harmony  with  that  idea,  and  in  equally  conscious  antagonism  to  every 
opposite  idea  and  sentiment.  We  violate  no  law  of  our  moral  and 
epiritual  nature,  but  consciously  conform  to  every  such  law,  when  we 
admit  the  validity  of  that  idea,  and  act  accordingly.  If,  on  the  other 
baud,  we  repudiate  that  idea  as  representing  a  non-reality,  and  move  and 
act  accordingly,  darkness  visible  encircles  us,  and  all  our  moral  and 
epiritual  activities  become  lawlessly  disordered.  Universal  mind,  in  all 
the  higher  departments  of  its  nature,  is  a  lie,  or  the  doctrine  of  an  infi- 


THE  MEDIEVAL  EVOLUTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY.  431 

nite  and  perfect  personal  God  is  true.  In  the  absence  of  all  evidence  to 
the  contrary,  such  high  proof  as  this  has  absolute  validity.  The  unbelief 
of  the  present,  and  of  all  ages,  is  merely  a  relentless  war  upon  human 
nature  itself.  The  idea  of  a  Godless  universe  can  have  place  in  no  mind 
which  does  not  ignore  all  the  conscious  intuitions,  and  promptings,  and 
laws  of  its  own  moral  and  spiritual  nature.  When  the  idea  of  an  infinite 
and  perfect  personal  God  lifts  its  Divine  form,  as  it  must  do,  before  the 
mind,  rational  mind  must  deny  its  own  being,  and  conscious  nature  and 
laws,  or  admit  the  validity  of  that  idea,  and  this  fact  does  furnish  a 
basis  and  principles  of  infinite  importance  for  the  scientific  prosecu- 
tion of  our  inquiries  on  the  subject. 

There  is,  also,  connected  with  this  argument,  a  form  of  evidence  of  the 
highest  weight  in  favour  of  the  Theistic  hypothesis.  While  all  do  and 
must  admit  the  reality  of  an  ultimate  reason,  or  cause,  why  the  facts  of 
the  universe  are  what  they  are  and  not  otherwise,  it  is  undeniably 
manifest,  as  Kant  acknowledges  and  affirms,  that  no  idea  so  fully  and 
naturally  and  adequately  represents  our  conception  of  that  cause  as  that 
of  an  infinite  and  perfect  personal  God.  As  this  idea  fully  explains  all 
the  facts  of  the  universe  just  as  they  are,  it  absolutely  excludes  all 
possible  proof,  positive  evidence,  or  antecedent  probability  in  favour  of 
any  opposite  hypothesis.  The  Theistic  hypothesis,  as  we  have  before 
shown,  accords  fully  with  the  intuitive  convictions  of  the  race,  and  a 
conviction  thus  universal  is,  as  Cicero  has  truly  affirmed,  a  law  of  rature, 
universality  being  the  immutable  and  infallible  test  of  such  law.  Now 
an  hypothesis  against  which  no  form  or  degree  of  real  proof,  positive 
evidence,  or  antecedent  probability  can  be  adduced,  which  more  naturally, 
fully,  and  adequately  represents  our  necessary  idea  of  ultimate  causation, 
and  which  perfectly  accords  with  the  intuitive  convictions  of  the  race, 
such  an  hypothesis  we  must  admit  to  be  valid,  or  openly  ignore  and 
repudiate  a  known  law  of  nature.  Such  is  the  undeniable  state  of  the 
Theistic  argument  in  the  sphere  of  thought  and  inquiry  in  which  we  now 
are.  We  must  admit  the  validity  of  the  doctrine  of  God,  or  hold  an 
hypothesis  of  some  kind — an  hypothesis  in  favour  of  which  not  a  shadow 
of  evidence  of  any  form  or  degree  can  be  adduced,  on  the  one  hand  ;  and 
on  the  other  place  ourselves  in  open  antagonism  to  an  absolute  law  of  the 
Universal  Intelligence,  the  intuitive  convictions  of  the  raoew 


■NO  OP  VOL.  fc 


